Saturday, November 16, 2013

If an "in-kind" donation of services spans an entire fiscal year, what is the appropriate gift date?

gift for her on first date
 on Secret X Factor romance revealed: One Direction's Zain Malik and Belle ...
gift for her on first date image



Will L


For example, a law firm provides in-kind legal counsel over the course of a fiscal year and valuates it at $50,000. What is the correct gift date to use when recording this in-kind donation of services?


Answer
The actual gift date would be the date that the law firm agrees to provide the $50,000 in free legal services. Now, how this is recorded in the books depends on what type of accounting method is used (accrual or cash basis) and the circumstances surrounding the transaction. In this particular example, the company would credit the income account "gifts in kind" and debit an asset account such as "prepaid legal expense," since they haven't actually received the services yet. As the services are used, you would credit the asset account "prepaid legal expense" and debit the expense account "legal expenses" for the value of the services used each month.

When cost basis is at FMV as of date of gift, what about holding period?




JustQA


In case of property gifeted with loss, when subsequently sold at loss, the basis is FMV as of date of gift. But would the date of acquision is the date of gift or date of investment to determine long term/ short term loss.
Example: Date of gift 3-Jan-2007, Gift proceeds Investment 20-Oct-2007, Sell 14-Apr-2008. Would we consider this a short term loss or a long term loss?



Answer
Long term is over one year.

Short term is less than one year.

The gift was held longer than one year by the individual who gifted the property, therefore the gift is considered long-term.

Date of the purchase is October 20, 2007 and the sell date is April 14, 2008. The gift date is a date of transfer.

If the gift is an inheritance then the estate has to decide whether to use the date of death as the valuation date or to take the option of using the date six months after the date of death. Then you would use the date the estate used. With inherited property it is always considered long term.




Powered by Yahoo! Answers

No comments:

Post a Comment