Does he have any basis? Do we or should we have basis in our body parts?

Hi Miranda! I assume no basis--but Paul questions the assumption at http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2006/01/charitable_dedu.html. What could his basis be? In "passing it" I assume he incurred no cost, he also incurred no cost in creating it, etc. Is there any guidance on basis in the case of the donation of other things such as sperm? I assume the answer is no--i.e., both no guidance and no basis!

My rough and ready research yielded an 11th Circuit case disallowing a charitable deduction for donated blood in part because taxpayers failed to establish that the donated blood had any basis or that it had been held longer than six months (which I assume was the LTCG holding period at the time of the case). (The court then applied the rule that reduces the amount of a charitable deduction that is allowed by any gain that is ordinary or STCG to reduce the allowable deduction to zero). So this suggests that as a matter of precedent, the Captain does not have any basis in his kidney stone. I wonder, though, if we shouldn't have basis in things like blood and organs because we do incur costs (for example, food), to sustain them. Maybe the kidney stone is a windfall for which there might not be basis, but at least the kidney should have basis under this reasoning. Unfortunately for him, I also think the stone (even if he could prove he had it for longer than a year) won't qualify as a capital asset, since he created it with his own efforts.

Only as a strict term of art could a kidney stone possibly be referred to as a 'windfall' and while there is a valuation question regarding the costs associated with the delivery of the stone, it isn't unreasonable to consider them substantial.

This really doesn't have anything to do with the merits, but I think it's hard to address any Shatner issue without a sense of how he covers Elton John. Particularly the way he finishes such a cover.

http://www.gawker.com/news/movies/william-shatner-returns-to-awards-hosting-elton-john-is-standing-by-149063.php

In my view, in light of this information, Shatner can sell whatever he wants.

David, I do not have words for that. It's possible that words don't exist for that. Thanks for the hearty laugh!

Everyone here is wrong.

The basis on the kidney stone is the sum of the two components: first, the costs of getting a stone to be formed in his body, and second, the costs of mining a stone from the body. As to the first: kidney stones are to a large extent caused by high-calcium and high-protein diets, so the basis should include the full cost of all meat and dairy foods he consumed over his lifetime. This sum should be discounted by the probability that he acquired a stone due to a non-dietary and “free” factor, like heredity.

As to the second: the basis should include all stone-related medical expenses. From this, we should subtract the portion of his medical expenses that went into pain reduction, rather than stone-mining. A creative lawyer should argue that pain reduction costs should be incorporated into the basis as a necessary element of stone-mining (he would not have gone into this business if pain reduction were not available).

Since his food and medical expenses are likely to be higher than $25,000 that he got from the sale, he should be able to claim a LOSS for tax purposes.

I don't imagine Cpt. Kirk really caring too much about $25,000, the tax from that is probably just pocket change for him anyway. Either way, it was for a good cause!