Baseball Cards and Memorabilia as Office Decorations

With the United States baseball championship well underway in this year’s 2022 World Series, I received an interesting question about Sports Memorabilia (Baseball Cards) the other day and I thought I’d share this as a quick post.

Question

I have an extensive baseball card collection and other baseball memorabilia, such as autographed baseballs, signed jerseys, and photographs. I would like to achieve some tax deductions for these items. Could I decorate my office with these items and then depreciate them for tax purposes?

Answer

No. In Simon v Commissioner, the court said you depreciate property that suffers exhaustion, wear, and tear, or obsolescence by its use in a business. 1

The court noted that valuable artwork purchased as office ornamentation is apt to suffer nothing more damaging than occasional criticism from the tutored or untutored . . . and yet it, too, would “probably fail” to qualify as recovery (depreciable) property.

The Simon case is especially instructive as it is one of the cases that approved the depreciation of antiques physically used in the business.

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So, no matter who you’re rooting for to win this year’s World Series Baseball Championship, know that as a fan and a collector of Memorabilia you have some viable options that will work for you.

If you have questions, need clarity, or need help understanding how to navigate your memorabilia collection and to further help retain or maximize your financial gains, please contact us at Morris + D’Angelo. This is our Expertise!

At Morris + D’Angelo, we believe that Tax Optimization is one of the most empowering and responsible things you can do to protect your growing financial assets. Tax optimization looks at a multi-year approach to minimizing tax costs. Tax avoidance is integral to tax optimization.

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Parts of this article are published with permission from Bradford Tax Institute, © 2021 Daniel Morris, Morris + D’Angelo

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Daniel Morris
Daniel frequently provides Media Content via Workshops, Podcasts, and Printed Articles on topics like Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency, Wealth Preservation and Planning, Global Banking, and many other high-level financial topics that serve and demonstrate the Value of our Global Network that should be of interest to those who need Private High-Wealth Services.

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