Well, I tried Don's suggestion about getting a letter from the sponsors of benefit performances. One was for a church, and they readily agreed to write the letter with a dollar amount for our donated performance.

Another was for a Rotary event. I asked a friend of mine to look into it, he forwarded it to the president of the organization - who happens to be an accountant - and this is the reply we got from the accountant:

As I'm sure you can appreciate, musicians giving out tax tips is as dangerous as me giving music lessons! Unfortunately, the advice given Barbara Shaw is misguided. There is no tax deduction for donating your time, services, etc. If there was, what kind of refund do you think us Rotarians would get????? The only deductions allowed are for cash donations, or non cash items such as clothes, art, stocks, cars, etc. to registered charities.

I took great offense at his implication that musicians are incapable of anything but music. My response to the friend was that this guy was patronizing and condescending, and that he had misunderstood my request.

We had in fact donated our fee. If we had been paid and then handed it back to the sponsor, it would be clear. A letter to that effect would have made it deductible.

I resisted the impulse to tell him that "us Rotarians" was obviously not written by an English major, so asking for a written response from an accountant was as dangerous as getting tax advice from a musician.