Really? You can’t donate time to a charity and gain any tax benefit? (Not that the Oscars are a charity per se)
Billy Crystal is almost 64 years old. There’s no mention of him being in financial trouble in the Wikipedia entry:
He’s had a pretty successful career. He’s presumably invested his earnings well and he and his wife can live comfortably for the rest of their lives without working anymore. Hey, maybe they can move in with one of their daughters if they need to. They can be a sitcom family where the grandparents make wisecracks with their grandchildren. Anybody that age with a reasonable amount of career success has either prepared themselves for retirement or is in big trouble.
That’s correct; you cannot.
Really. No deduction for your own time.
If you do something like get paid by the charity and donate your paycheck back to the charity, then you have taxable income in the amount you were paid and an offsetting deduction for the donation back to the charity.
And if you are a renowned artist and donate a painting appraised at $1 million that you yourself painted to a museum, you can only deduct the cost of paint and canvas.
I have no idea, but I think there are often times where people take scale for stuff. You hear about actors doing this for film festival type films. I don’t remember specifics, but big name actors do it sometimes.
I assume he knows many people in the audience. It was probably a lot of fun for him.
Also agree that not every actor is the type of person who doesn’t save. AFAIK - he doesn’t have any big habits (not that I would know). I am sure some of them - when they were struggling - made promises to themselves “If I ever make it - I am going to save money for the lean times.”
Then they can do projects they like.
Did you hear the mix? It was dreadful. You wouldn’t think they’d go cheap but it sure sounded like it.
Huh? In Canada, if you are professional and you donate your professional time, you can get a receipt from a charity for the equivalent. I’ve done it to prep (donated) used computers for a charity to resell for fnd-raising. The risk, of course, is that if a charity plays games with this concept (overpricing, invalid work, etc.) the donation and or their charity license may be cancelled.
Keep in mind “non-profit” does not equal “charity”. Charities are approved and licensed and meet certain criteria. A professonal actors’ association may be non-proft, but unless it donates all the proceeds to some “acting camp for inner city kids” fund, it’s not a charity.
Everyone wants an academy award. You don’t get them for *Meet the Fokkers - 3D *(although a few years ago Norbert did get one nomination… 
) so when a small indepent film maker wants to do a low-budget artsy film with a juicy role (i.e. Crash, Girls Don’t Cry or Precious) big stars will participate for the basic scale pay, possibly plus percentage.
[QUOTE=md2000]
Huh? In Canada, if you are professional and you donate your professional time, you can get a receipt from a charity for the equivalent. I’ve done it to prep (donated) used computers for a charity to resell for fnd-raising. The risk, of course, is that if a charity plays games with this concept (overpricing, invalid work, etc.) the donation and or their charity license may be cancelled.
[/QUOTE]
Really? gifts of services are not eligible for a charitable donation receipt, according to the CRA:
(underlining added)