Political Quotes

“I rise to introduce modest legislation that will eliminate controversy between the IRS and people who use their automobiles to perform charitable work. Two years, ago I was successful in convincing my colleagues that the standard mileage rate for charitable activities should be raised to 14 cents a mile. I would have preferred that the mileage rate would have been set higher, but at least this was a step in the right direction. It has recently come to my attention that if a charity reimburses a volunteer at a rate higher than 14 cents a mile, the volunteer must include such higher reimbursement in income. Thus, for example, if a person uses his car for a voluntary food delivery program or for patient transportation and the charity reimburses the volunteer 25 cents a mile, the individual would have 11 cents of income. That is absurd, Mr. President, especially when one considers that if a person was performing the same service as an employee of a company, the person could be reimbursed tax-free at the rate of 31 cents a mile. I understand that there have been cases where volunteer drivers have been audited and subjected to back taxes, penalties, and interest because of unreported volunteer mileage reimbursement, even though that reimbursement did not exceed the allowable business rate and the dollar amounts were quite small. Does IRS have nothing better to do than audit such individuals? My bill would eliminate this problem.”