TODAY’S TALKER

Good deed fails to go unpunished after IRS finds out about it

When Louis Goffinet, a middle school science teacher in Connecticut, first started buying groceries for struggling families, he never expected to be handling tens of thousands of dollars.

Determined to help a few elderly or laid-off neighbors last April, he appealed to his Facebook friends to throw him a few bucks on an online fundraiser.

Much to his surprise, that effort quickly drew hundreds of donors from around the world. By July, Goffinet had raised more than $30,000. He used the money to buy and deliver bags of food — as well as gas and rental assistance — for more than 100 families in Mansfield Center, Connecticut.

In January, the Internal Revenue Service notified him that he owed about half that amount in taxes.

“I was so shocked,”goffinet, 27, told the Hartford Courant.“it’s such a big amount. It’s not like I can say, ‘Oh, for the next month or two, I’ll dial down my expenses and I’ll save $16,000.’”

Third-party transaction sites like Facebook Fundraisers are required to issue a 1099-K form to the IRS on any transactions that exceed $20,000. While those guidelines are posted on Facebook’s donation platform, Goffinet said he never thought his volunteer effort would get so big.

His original ambitions to raise $200 were met before he even made it to sleep that night, and the project quickly snowballed. With donors from across Connecticut, the effort quickly grew to include two other volunteers and outreach to needy families through Mansfield Center’s town government.

By last July, Goffinet had made 130 shopping trips for struggling households.