In article om, DerbyDad03 wrote:

First off, to be a conspiracy it must have been "an agreement by two
or more persons to commit a crime, fraud, or other wrongful act."

Well, let's see. You and the charity agreed on an artificially inflated value
of the car you donated, in order for you to claim a tax deduction larger than
what you're entitled to.

That fits.

So
unless the folks at BOCES and I agreed that we were trying to evade
taxes, it doesn't fit the definition.

Yeah, right. I imagine the IRS will view that a bit differently, should you
ever be audited.

Second, I did not evade income taxes, nor did I even try.

You did, and you did -- by claiming a deduction that exceeded the fair market
value of the donation.

Based on
BOCES estimation of the value of the vehicle *to their organization*
the price I put down as the "donated amount" was acceptable. They saw
the vehicle, evaluated it, and agreed that the value of the *donation*
I claimed was accurate.

Doesn't matter. You're not entitled to claim a deduction for more than the
fair market value, regardless of what inflated "value" the recipient may place
on the donation. If you think you are... post a link to the exact language of
the law permitting that.

That is why the exception to the rules about only being able to claim
what the charity sold the vehicle for were added - the donated item
might be worth much more to the charity, as a training device for
example, than it's actual street value.

No, the reason that was added was to prevent people from doing what you did:
taking a deduction for a specious, invented "value" that's been inflated far
above the actual fair market value.

Do you not think that BOCES,
as a certified charity that needs to make sure they maintain that
status, would have refused to agree (in writing) with the value I
placed on the form if it was out of line?

They may not even have had any idea what the true value was, and signed off on
whatever bogus "value" you told them it had.

I doubt they care enough
about me to red-flag their operation by helping me cheat the IRS.

Depends on how desperate they are for cars, I suppose.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.