Asilomar Tax Information:

Asilomar is important to our Association because it is a major fund-raiser for our scholarship program. Each year we raise almost enough for two of our graduate scholarships. This money comes from the $100 per person registration fee, and the part that isn't used for expenses (speakers' housing, wine with dinner, etc.) is totally tax-deductible.

Every year, right after Asilomar and up to April 15, you ask how much of the $100 you can take as a charitable tax deduction, and we tell you we can't give you an exact number, but you can safely use $70. Here's what happens - you pay a $100 deposit at Asilomar that gets applied to the next Asilomar. We send that all that money to Asilomar to reserve space for the next year. We hold the event the following February, but Asilomar takes it's sweet time refunding the balance of the deposit beyond what they actually need. We may not know until May or June. So we cannot give you a solid number even though you made the payment over a year ago! We generally recommend $70 based on our past experience that it will be a few dollars low. This way, if you get audited by the IRS, they will find that you understated your deduction and have to give you a credit, rather than find that you overstated it, and label you a tax-cheat.