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Tax receipt for TAM

ZapMePlease

Student
Z
Joined
Feb 19, 2013
Messages
37
So I went to TAM with my wife this year - we purchased the TAM experience - it's supposed to provide a tax receipt for part of the purchase price.

I asked about it at the registration desk and nobody knew anything about it.

I went back and talked to (Jason?) who said that they would be coming by email.

I got home but didn't get one so I emailed events@randi.org and asked about it and also how I could sponsor a teacher for next year. I got no reply

I waited a few days and then emailed tam@randi.org with the same thing - asking for a receipt and how to sponsor a teacher. Again I got no reply

So I sent my next email with the same questions to djgrothe@randi.org and got nothing from him either

Finally I emailed yet again to tam@randi.org

Still nothing.

This is 4 emails over a month period with no reply from any of them including the one to DJ Grothe.

Yes - to answer the obvious question - I've checked my spam folder.

What's the deal? This is pretty disappointing.
 
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ZapMePlease said:
So I went to TAM with my wife this year - we purchased the TAM experience - it's supposed to provide a tax receipt for part of the purchase price.

I asked about it at the registration desk and nobody knew anything about it.

I went back and talked to (Jason?) who said that they would be coming by email.

I got home but didn't get one so I emailed events@randi.org and asked about it and also how I could sponsor a teacher for next year. I got no reply

I waited a few days and then emailed tam@randi.org with the same thing - asking for a receipt and how to sponsor a teacher. Again I got no reply

So I sent my next email with the same questions to djgrothe@randi.org and got nothing from him either

Finally I emailed yet again to tam@randi.org

Still nothing.

This is 4 emails over a month period with no reply from any of them including the one to DJ Grothe.

Yes - to answer the obvious question - I've checked my spam folder.

What's the deal? This is pretty disappointing.
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Go for Sharon@randi.org. People have been having better success there.
 
Has anyone checked there is still anyone at JREF?
Maybe they did a runner?
 
Good idea. I'll try that tomorrow.

Funny - I'm so used to email/text I don't even think about using the phone anymore.

I'll tell you one thing that I've figured out from this - I'm certainly not going to be making a donation to JREF anytime soon. I'm pretty bummed by this. Randi is a hero to me and having the organization with his name attached act so poorly bothers me a lot.
 
I'm not sure how much the portion was you get to write off, but I don't think they always have to provide a receipt. May want to give this a read as well, just to see what you can do if the IRS gets cranky at you:

http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Substantiating-Charitable-Contributions

Oh wait - are you really in Canada? Probably something similar there then, I'd imagine. Might be worth looking up to see if you really need to have the receipt and all.
 
Thanks.

Yeah - in Canada - I think I can claim it without the receipt but if I get audited I'd be in trouble without it.

The website never really said how much the charitable portion was - so I don't know how much I could write off anyways. The TAM experience for the two of us was nearly 2 grand so if it was $500 or so that would be worth following up on.

The tax receipt part is only part of what's ticking me off, though. I was trying to offer to sponsor a teacher for next year's TAM and can't get an answer from them on that either. You'd think the JREF would want to get as many sponsored attendees as possible.
 
ZapMePlease said:
Thanks.

Yeah - in Canada - I think I can claim it without the receipt but if I get audited I'd be in trouble without it.

The website never really said how much the charitable portion was - so I don't know how much I could write off anyways. The TAM experience for the two of us was nearly 2 grand so if it was $500 or so that would be worth following up on.

The tax receipt part is only part of what's ticking me off, though. I was trying to offer to sponsor a teacher for next year's TAM and can't get an answer from them on that either. You'd think the JREF would want to get as many sponsored attendees as possible.
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The JREF is a tiny, tiny organization. TAM itself looks rather big, but that's just that event, and almost all of the "JREFers" that you see at TAM, except for the professionals running the technical and hotel stuff, are volunteers (I speak as one of them), which isn't a bad thing for a non-profit.

Keep trying, though. I think you'll get a response.
 
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ZMP - Sharon and DJ are the real staff members, so if you do keep e-mailing, keep at theirs. Not even sure where the other ones go.
 
RemieV said:
ZMP - Sharon and DJ are the real staff members, so if you do keep e-mailing, keep at theirs. Not even sure where the other ones go.
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Doesn't the JREF have a part-time secretary, to pick up the phone, and tell people who phone when Randi will visit the office next (and to perform administrative and secretarial tasks)?
 
Michel H said:
Doesn't the JREF have a part-time secretary, to pick up the phone, and tell people who phone when Randi will visit the office next (and to perform administrative and secretarial tasks)?
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Nope, not anymore. There's no office, either.
 
ZapMePlease said:
Thanks.

Yeah - in Canada - I think I can claim it without the receipt but if I get audited I'd be in trouble without it.

The website never really said how much the charitable portion was - so I don't know how much I could write off anyways. The TAM experience for the two of us was nearly 2 grand so if it was $500 or so that would be worth following up on.

The tax receipt part is only part of what's ticking me off, though. I was trying to offer to sponsor a teacher for next year's TAM and can't get an answer from them on that either. You'd think the JREF would want to get as many sponsored attendees as possible.
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IANACPA, but is any of it a deduction? A donation is when you give something without getting anything of value in return. At TAM, you get something of value in return. You're paying to attend a conference.
 
Cleon said:
Nope, not anymore. There's no office, either.
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Really? From these two pages (page1 and page2), we learn that the JREF does have a postal address (in Falls Church, Virginia, near Washington D. C., area code 703), and that Randi and Grothe have JREF phone numbers (area code 213, this is in Los Angeles). One might get the impression that, instead of having no office, they have actually two.
 
The Central Scrutinizer said:
IANACPA, but is any of it a deduction? A donation is when you give something without getting anything of value in return. At TAM, you get something of value in return. You're paying to attend a conference.
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From http://www.amazingmeeting.com/tam2014/faq/

The TAM Experience includes everything in the other packages plus upgraded VIP registration, expedited conference check-in, special reserved seating (front and center classroom-style tables), and admission to the special benefit dinner. A portion of this package is treated as a tax-deductible charitable contribution to The James Randi Educational Foundation.
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The Central Scrutinizer said:
A donation is when you give something without getting anything of value in return.
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That's a bit too strict. If you are fundraising (and you meet all the other requirements) you can sell products and allow customers to claim the amount above the fair market value of those products as a tax deductions.

For instance, if you hold a charity auction and purchase a $50 gizmo for $400, you didn't do that because you thought it had $400 of value (I hope!), you're doing it with the understanding that some portion of the money is a contribution. That portion is normally tax deductible like a straight cash contribution would be.

In this case the "TAM experience" was a premium package, not simply an admission to TAM (which certainly does have a fair market value).
 
Michel H said:
Really? From these two pages (page1 and page2), we learn that the JREF does have a postal address (in Falls Church, Virginia, near Washington D. C., area code 703), and that Randi and Grothe have JREF phone numbers (area code 213, this is in Los Angeles). One might get the impression that, instead of having no office, they have actually two.
Click to expand...

One might, if one didn't know better.
 
Michel H said:
Really? From these two pages (page1 and page2), we learn that the JREF does have a postal address (in Falls Church, Virginia, near Washington D. C., area code 703), and that Randi and Grothe have JREF phone numbers (area code 213, this is in Los Angeles). One might get the impression that, instead of having no office, they have actually two.
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The Falls Church address is a mailing address at Rick Adams' restaurant. It's not an office, just the on-paper corporate HQ.

As for LA, there was an office there, but I believe they shut it down a couple months ago.
 
Cleon said:
The Falls Church address is a mailing address at Rick Adams' restaurant. It's not an office, just the on-paper corporate HQ.

As for LA, there was an office there, but I believe they shut it down a couple months ago.
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Thank you for this substantive info, Cleon. Wikipedia says, about Richard Adams:
Richard (Rick) L. Adams, Jr. is an Internet pioneer and the founder of UUNET, which, in the mid and late 1990s, was the world's largest Internet Service Provider (ISP).
Adams was responsible for the first widely available Serial Line IP (SLIP) implementation and founding UUNET, thereby making the Internet widely accessible.
...
In 1996, he donated one million dollars U.S. to the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) to be used as the basis for its One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge.[1] He is the JREF's treasurer.
...
After leaving UUNET, Rick pursued opportunities as a partner in other ventures, including Cello and the 2941 restaurant in Falls Church, Virginia.
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This restaurant (website here, photos shown), apparently, is a big and impressive place, no small pizzeria. I read, on the front page:
Congratulations to 2941 Pastry Chef Caitlin Dysart
Pastry Chef of the Year | RAMMY AWARD 2014
...
2941 Named by Northern Virginia Magazine as the 'Best Wedding Reception Venue' in Northern Virginia | 'Best Of' Issue 2014
We are celebrating this honor by offering an Exclusive Wedding Day Deal now through August 31, 2014.
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They mention "662 reviews" on the contact page, TripAdvisor alone has 229 reviews about them, with an average of 4 stars.
 
I hope you didn't infer that I was slamming the place in some way. By all accounts it's very successful, and I certainly don't argue with Rick's business acumen. I certainly didn't mean to imply the JREF was located at some sketchy pizza joint in Little Italy. ;)

But it's not a JREF office. It's a restaurant that the JREF uses as a mailing address.
 
Cleon said:
I hope you didn't infer that I was slamming the place in some way. By all accounts it's very successful, and I certainly don't argue with Rick's business acumen. I certainly didn't mean to imply the JREF was located at some sketchy pizza joint in Little Italy. ;)
...
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No, of course.
But it's not a JREF office. It's a restaurant that the JREF uses as a mailing address.
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It's difficult to be sure, in my opinion.
The JREF's postal address is:
"2941 Fairview Park Drive, Suite 105Falls Church
VA 22042
USA"
2941 Fairview Park Drive, Falls Church is the restaurant's address. Perhaps the JREF's office is located within Suite 105 of that building, there are perhaps lots of documents of the Foundation there (tax returns since 1996? correspondence with attorneys? ...). As to Randi's and Grothe's phone numbers in L.A. (still) mentioned on randi.org, (to be sure) perhaps somebody should try them to see if they still "work", and report the result on the forum.
 
Randi's number might be in LA, but he still lives in Ft. Lauderdale. DJ lives in LA.

Look, I don't really care if you think JREF has an office or not.
 
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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
fvpropinvest.gif

2941 Fairview Park Drive, Suite 105
Falls Church, Virginia 22042
[/FONT] Directions to Fairview Park



^ Checking, gets me this as well. I think it's a postal address.
 
It's not just a restaurant. It's a large office building in an office park. There just happens to be a upscale restaurant in it.
 
Cleon said:
And Suite 105 is the property management office.
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This is rather surprising isn't it? (so KoihimeNakamura above was right). So, the postal mail sent to the JREF is actually sent to the property management office of Fairview Park. And perhaps Rick Adams has to go pick it up periodically there, unless it's forwarded to his restaurant (located in Fairview Park) and to him.
Perhaps this has been decided to avoid sending JREF mail to a restaurant.
 
lol - I gotta say that despite the innocence of all of this it does cast a bit of a shadow on the organization.

I get that it's small and I get that it's run by volunteers but not having an actual mailing address of your own seems kinda sketchy. At least use a PO box or something that has a semblance of legitimacy. Sending cheques to the JREF c/o a restaurant seems a bit off to me.

I didn't get a chance to phone today but I'll give it a whirl on Monday and post back what happens. Either way I think I've decided against being a sponsor for the time being. While I trust the JREF - and have not been given a reason not to - my spider senses are tingling and telling me to keep my chequebook in my pocket.


zmp
 
ZapMePlease said:
...
I get that it's small and I get that it's run by volunteers but not having an actual mailing address of your own seems kinda sketchy.
....
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It sounds more than a little sketchy. Why would any legitimate organization of any kind not have its own address, even if it's a P.O. box or private mailbox? If checks and correspondence go to a property management office and have to be picked up by a restaurateur, what happens then? Does it get forwarded somewhere else? Who accounts for money and deposits it in the bank? What address does it use for bank statements and tax returns? How would you send a certified letter if you needed to? Does JREF, as a tax-exempt organization, have an accountant? Does it get audited? Are any financial records publicly accessible?

If this is the official published address of JREF,
http://www.fairview-park.com/fvpdocs/contact.html
what's the connection between them?
 
Yeah, just a "mail drop". (insert rolling-eyes gobsmacked angry smiley) If there was ever a need for evidence as to why the Foundation needs to be more transparent, this Sherlockian adventure/derail is it.

Has it occurred to anyone that Rick Adams quite likely owns the complex? (That's quite nearly rhetorical as there are numerous references to it being his building, although he may have sold it for all I know). The "management office" may be his primary mailing address. He's the treasurer and one of the largest benefactors of the Foundation, and I doubt he's taking anyone's donation and playing the ponies with it.
 
It's really not "sketchy," though I can see how it sounds. JREF does exist, it's not a shadow organization or anything. It's just in a bad state right now.

10 years ago, they had an office, a library, and a full-time staff. Now they don't really have any of the above, and the board wants to get things going again.
 
Foolmewunz said:
Yeah, just a "mail drop". (insert rolling-eyes gobsmacked angry smiley) If there was ever a need for evidence as to why the Foundation needs to be more transparent, this Sherlockian adventure/derail is it.

Has it occurred to anyone that Rick Adams quite likely owns the complex? (That's quite nearly rhetorical as there are numerous references to it being his building, although he may have sold it for all I know). The "management office" may be his primary mailing address. He's the treasurer and one of the largest benefactors of the Foundation ...
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Good point, Foolmewunz. According to Christopher Bollyn, who is a journalist (see here),
The JREF is located in Suite 105 of the 2941 Fairview Park Drive building, which is the business office of Rick Adams' 2941 Fairview Park Drive, LLC, who is the legal owner of the building.
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So it seems the JREF is located in a business office of its treasurer Rick Adams.
 
Cleon said:
The Falls Church address is a mailing address at Rick Adams' restaurant. It's not an office, just the on-paper corporate HQ.

As for LA, there was an office there, but I believe they shut it down a couple months ago.
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Is that accurate? Was there an announcement that the office was going away?

Ward
 
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