Waiving a volunteer fee for the benefit of a public benefit organisation (ANBI) is, under certain conditions, deductible for income tax.
Conditions
People who volunteer for an ANBI and waive their volunteer allowance may be entitled to gift deductions. But they must meet the following conditions (Section 6.36 IB Act 2001):
- the ANBI has issued a statement that the taxpayer has volunteered, as referred to in the payroll tax and;
- the taxpayer must be entitled to the allowance specified in that statement and;
- the institution must be willing and able to pay the allowance and;
- the taxpayer should have the freedom to dispose of the allowance.
Volunteer agreement
At Court of Appeal in The Hague last year, a case on these conditions. The Court decides that in this case, it has not been made sufficiently plausible that interested parties were entitled to compensation for their voluntary work. The Court bases this on the volunteer agreement entered into between volunteers and ANBI, which states: “The Foundation enables the volunteer(s) to perform work without any payments in return.”. No other schemes were provided to show that the ANBI has a compensation scheme for its volunteers.
The case has been referred to the Supreme Court, but it did not pass judgment because no question of law was involved.