tax write off?

[rodvon]

I been thinking of doing folding, but I cant handle the electric bill. anyone know if you cant write off the power you use folding? If you get a letter or some doc saying how much time your comp spent folding. You then could figer out of watts used by your comp in that time frame, and take it off your taxs. Anyone try this or have looked in to it?

[Stanman]

I wish! Mine was $400.00 last month in a townhouse. :(

[Ebola]

ouch $400.

atleast you wont have to pay for heat in the winter with all of those tbirds.

[rodvon]

If you can figure you power usage and comp time that you use for a non-profit research project I would think you could write them off as you can any time, money, or item you donate I would think. Anyone here an accountant?

[William]

I THINK you would be able to, but again I am not sure. I think Newbie Doo works in banking, but not too sure.

[Stanman]

If anybody confirms that you can, and how to do it, I will "hook them up" with a basic folding rig. :)

[Superman53142]

I was searching through the Internal Revenue Code (here (http://www.tns.lcs.mit.edu/uscode/)), and a donation to the Folding@Home project would be tax-deductable. However, the idea that the power is your donation would probably not work. The code says that the contribution must be some sort of personal property. Is that power personal property? Probably not. Is that power being donated to Folding@Home? No. But, there may be a loophole. You know you can write off gas that you use to take your stuff to Goodwill or Salvation Army or whatever? You could say that the power is used to transfer your information to Folding@Home, with the information being the donation. This probably wouldn't hold up under an audit, however, and isn't recommened. Of course, if you don't get audited...

[burn'em]

I see a discussion with my accountant in my future.
So I guess that I can write off the machines that I bougth for folding.
If I remmber right there are 5 Dual Xeon P4 with 160 scsi 500 gb raid HD's 19" Flat screen monitors, I (wonder if I can write off a T-3 line) LOL

[AmbientFiction]

$30k a month have fun trying that one burn'em. You'd have better luck passing stan with the same ammount of rigs you have going now. If your going to get a Network line as a tax write off try getting an OC192 :D

[GuNRocK]

now thats some crazy bills 400$ mine is like 130 for july and thats CDN..stanman u would cost me 600$ for power man thats more then i make in 2weeks at my PT job lol... well if u wana save money cancle the natural gas line and...just spread 2-3 folding comps into each room and u got a nice heat source...or get them all watercooling so then u made yourself a nice radaitor to heat each room LOL

[fireball****aka fireball_87]

i alredy figured out that a rig sucking 300 watts constint for a week costs 4.75 in electricty(@10 cent per kw/h[watt rateing*24/1000X cents per kw/hr]

[sfa ok]

Originally posted by fireball****aka fireball_87
i alredy figured out that a rig sucking 300 watts constint for a week costs 4.75 in electricty(@10 cent per kw/h[300*24/1000X cents per kw/hr]

I doubt it's actually at the full 300 watts, is there a way to figure out the exact wattage?

[fireball****aka fireball_87]

Originally posted by sfa ok


I doubt it's actually at the full 300 watts, is there a way to figure out the exact wattage?
theres a little divise that pluges in between the pc and the wall that will to that, but it's like $40

[SickBoy]

So has anyone determined if this may be a tax writeoff?

SickBoy

[Superman53142]

Originally posted by [oc]SickBoy
So has anyone determined if this may be a tax writeoff?

SickBoy

Anything's a tax write off as long as you don't get audited :D

It sounds like that would be stretching the law. I'd see an accountant before you write it off. That way if they say yes and you get audited just say, "Well, he told me it was OK."

[Amedeo602]

I emailed the accounting professor at my college and he emailed me back! (he got my name wrong though....he didn't even get the correct sex...lol)

Good Morning Georgianna:
If the only reason Stan has these PC are to assist the
non-profit organization, then the operating costs -
electric,
diskettes, repairs, insurance, etc. could be taken as a charitable contribution on schedule A. One could give the PC's to the non-profit as a tax write-off but keep the
PC's in tact and operate them for the non-profit.

If Stan has a business, and the philosophy of the business
is
to "give back" to the community in this form, the operating costs may be small compared to total operating costs of the
business, I probably would have a tendency to include the
costs of running the PC's as part of the business operating costs.

I hope my thought process may help.

Ron Kremer


My original email:
>
> Professor Kremer,
> I appreciate any insight you may have in this situation. Thanks in advance
> for your time and knowledge.
> Here's the situation: A gentleman, I'll call him Stan, has several computers
> that run a computer program 24/7 that is endorsed by Stanford University and
> helps benefit medical science. Stan has approximately 20 machines that are on
> all the time and all that they do is run this program (it's a program that
> simulates protein folding to find cures for diseases). Could Stan write off
> the amount of his electricity bill that these machines use in his tax return
> since his machines are using the power produced to benefit a non-profit
> organization?

[Amedeo602]

PS: Don't ask me to interpret any of this legal mumbo-jumbo. All I did was tell him the situation and ask for advice.

PPS: I'm not to be held liable for anyone going to prison for tax fraud for doing this. :D

[Stanman]

Federal prison isn't bad, but once is enough for me.
Thanks for the info, I'll have to see if I could develop anything from this angle. :)

[Amedeo602]

If you want his email to ask him particular question, I can give it to you (but I'd rather not post it on a public board if ya get my drift). Just PM me if you want it.