Jeffrey L. Seglin's Blog, page 49

Is it OK to turn a generous offer into a money maker?

Is it OK to offer something to neighbors and then try to get paid for what you offer?
That's what H.F. wants to know. He's not saying he's going to do it, mind you, but he's curious about whether it would be wrong to try.
H.F. belongs to a neighborhood association that's made up of a couple of dozen homeowners in the neighborhood. Every year they meet to pay nominal dues that are used for small communal garden and other shared expenses. Most years, the neighbors meet in the communal garden. Everyone brings a folding share and any drinks or appetizers they want for themselves or to share.
This year, H.F. and his family happen to be hosting a family reunion in their backyard the day before the reunion. For the reunion, H.F. has rented a large tent for his backyard. He has also ordered mounds of food and drink to feed his relatives.
When the announcement went out about this year's neighborhood association meeting, H.F. suggested to the president of the association that they consider meeting in his backyard since he'd already have a tent up. (The sun typically beats down hard on the communal garden where they typically meet.) The president thought that was a terrific idea and the meeting was moved to H.F.'s backyard.
Now, H.F. wants to know if he has food left over whether he should offer it to his neighbors when they meet. And if he does, would it be wrong to ask the association to defray the costs of some of that food. He also wonders whether he might run by the association president the idea of sharing some of the cost of the tent rental -- maybe not for a full day, but for something.
I'll tackle the easiest of these questions first. Of course, it would be OK for H.F to offer any leftover food to his neighbors. It would be gracious and generous to do so, and if the food would just go bad anyway, it would also be wise. He's under no obligation to offer leftover food, but there's nothing wrong with doing so. I'm sure his neighbors would appreciate the gesture.
But no, it would not be OK to ask the association to offset the cost of the food nor the tent. H.F. made the suggestion of using his backyard and tent since he'd already have the tent up. If he expected to be compensated for that gesture in anyway, he should have discussed it with the association president before the fact. In that case, the president would have had the opportunity to say thanks, but no thanks, and choose to have the meeting in the communal garden as they have in previous years.
The right thing when you make a generous offer is to stick to the offer you made without expecting to be rewarded or paid for your generosity. H.F. is right to think twice about whether to ask about money for food or the tent. He should stick to his original offer and remain the thoughtful neighbor. If he serves food, his neighbors should be doubly appreciative. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues. 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 
F ollow him on Twitter: @jseglin  
(c) 2015 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

If I support my friends' charities, shouldn't they support mine?

Does regularly donating to someone's charitable efforts entitle the donor to expect anything in return?

For several years, K.T., a reader in New England, was one of many who received emails from C.V., a former colleague, asking him to sponsor his walk for charity. K.T. did not know anyone suffering from the disease for which the walk was designed to raise funds, but K.T. regularly gave to charities and liked the idea of helping out a former colleague with his efforts.
It became fairly routine each summer to expect the group email from C.V. asking for another pledge, and K.T. obliged.
Earlier this year, one of K.T.'s children decided to take part in a similar fundraising effort, although for a different cause. Rather than send out emails to everyone in his address book, K.T. decided to specifically email those friends whose charitable efforts he'd supported in the past. He also posted a link to his child's fundraising page on his own Facebook page so his Facebook friends could donate if they wanted to.
Many of K.T.'s friends pledged funds to help his child meet his goal. One notable exception was C.V. He didn't respond to or acknowledge K.T.'s email, nor did he like or comment on K.T.'s Facebook post. Even without his support, however, K.T.'s child was able to meet his fundraising goal. Several months passed and K.T. thought little of C.V.'s lack of response.
Then, a few weeks ago, as summer got into full swing, K.T. received the annual email from C.V., asking him once again to pledge funds for his charitable walk. It was pretty much the same group email he'd been receiving for years to which he had responded by donating some money on C.V.'s fundraising page on the charity's website and getting an automatically generated thank you in response.
This time around, however, K.T. is not so sure he wants to donate to C.V.
"After all the years I supported him and his cause, shouldn't he at least have acknowledged the email about my child's fundraiser?" K.T asked. "Wouldn't it be appropriate for him to make a donation after I supported his cause all these years?"
K.T. also asked if it was wrong for him to decide to no longer give to C.V.'s charity simply because C.V. didn't give to his child's charity.
While it would be nice for C.V. to have reciprocated and made a donation to K.T.'s child's charitable efforts, he is under no obligation to do so. Just because K.T. supported his colleague's charity does not mean he should expect anything in return -- other than supporting that charity.
There's also nothing wrong with K.T. choosing not to support C.V.'s charitable efforts any longer, regardless of the reason. If he still believes in the cause -- although it's not clear it was ever a cause close to his heart -- then he should consider giving. But he's not obligated to do so.
While it would be nice to help out friends who have supported you and your causes in the past, it's not required. The right thing with any donation to a charitable cause is to give to support the cause without expecting anything in return. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues. 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 
F ollow him on Twitter: @jseglin  
(c) 2015 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Do my bosses need to know how I spend my time off?

How much do we owe it to our bosses to let them know where we are all the time?
For months, J.L., a reader from California, had been planning to take two weeks off from work to travel with his daughter, a high school junior, to the East Coast to tour college campuses. Both he and his daughter had worked out the logistics, including flights, car rentals, staying at the homes of relatives, and scheduling the tours.
But two weeks before they were slated to travel, J.L.'s daughter was elected to serve as an officer for a national service organization to which she belonged. As part of the duties, she was expected to attend a week-long retreat in the Midwest with the rest of the officers, all expenses to be paid by the service organization. The dates for the retreat conflicted with the long-scheduled college tour schedule.
After agonizing over what to do, J.L.'s daughter decided it was important to meet her obligation to the service organization. So she asked J.L. if it would be OK to postpone the college tours. He agreed to the change and managed to cancel the flights and rental car and to alert all the family and friends that they wouldn't be visiting as originally scheduled.
Although his daughter was going to be away, J.L.'s son thought it would be fun to get his father to some of his favorite hangout spots during the week.
Typically, when J.L. is in town but not at work, he lets his bosses know so they can reach him if they have any questions about the projects in which he is working. Occasionally, this has resulted in J.L. going into work even when he was supposed to have a day off to help get a project completed. But this time he chose not to alert his bosses.
"I'm not telling the folks at work that I'm around, letting them think I'm back East," he writes. "Is this devious, wrong, showing a lack of character? You're the ethicist. Help me out here."
There is nothing devious or wrong about J.L.'s decision not to alert his bosses about his change in plans. He's taking time off. Where that time is taken should not be a concern to J.L.'s bosses. If J.L. told his bosses that they'd be able to reach him by cell when he's away, then nothing's changed on that front. Taking time off of work does not show a lack of character.
J.L. should not, however, lie about where he is. If he gets a call, he doesn't need to volunteer his location coordinates, but he shouldn't lie about them if directly asked. The right thing is for him to take the time off coming to him, be honest when asked, and to continue to do good work when he gets back to it. The right thing for his bosses would be to let J.L. take the time off that's coming to him without bugging him while he's away. What J.L. does on his time off should be up to J.L. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues. 

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 
F ollow him on Twitter: @jseglin  
(c) 2015 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should I lie to colleagues about applying for a job?

About 10 years ago, after working full-time for many years, A.L. decided she wanted to start working part-time so she would have more time to pursue other interests. Soon after making the decision, she was offered a part-time position. The pay was good, the hours were based on her availability, and the office was less than a mile from where she lived.
Over the years, the number of hours A.L. put into the job continued to grow as demand for her services grew. Ultimately, she was putting in just shy of a 30-hour work week and had built strong working relationships with her colleagues who held full-time positions.
A few weeks ago, one of A.L.'s colleague's retired, and an opening for a full-time spot opened up.
A.L. checked the job description for the new position and confirmed that the firm was looking for someone whose skills matched her own. A.L. had been considering trying to cut back on her hours, but she began to think that since the distance between the part-time hours she was already putting in and a full-time job had shrunk significantly over the past decade, it might be wise to consider applying.
After mulling it over, A.L. submitted a cover letter and her resume to the human resources department.
Now, she says, she finds herself facing another decision.
"I feel bad when colleagues ask me if I applied for the job," she says.
"I can't lie and say 'no' when they ask me directly," she says, "but I'm concerned that people will resent our manager if he gives the job to someone else." She fears they will both be disappointed that A.L. wasn't offered the position and the amount of time it will take to break in a new colleague. She also worries that her colleagues will think she's a bad sport if she decides to cut back her hours if she is not offered the full-time position.
"I know they want me to be offered and to take the job," she says.
A.L. asks if she should tell the truth if colleagues ask her about the job.
If colleagues discuss the job in general with her, A.L. has no ethical obligation to tell whether she has applied for the position. The same goes if they tell her how good it would be for her to get the full-time position. In the latter case, a simple "thanks for the vote of confidence" would suffice.
But if A.L. does apply and her colleagues directly ask her if she has applied for the position, the right thing is not to lie. Sure, it may be none of their business what A.L. decides to do, but A.L. should not lie. She should tell the truth not only because her lie might be exposed if it turns out she is offered and takes the position, but because her integrity is on the line. It's difficult to justify lying to a group of colleagues with whom she has built trust over the past decade.
A.L. can change the subject if she wants to. She can respond by telling colleagues that she'd rather not say. Or she can tell the truth. But the right thing is not to lie about her decision. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues. 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 
F ollow him on Twitter: @jseglin  
(c) 2015 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should old classmate apologize for childhood behavior?

Several weeks ago, M.N., a reader from Boston was making his daily commute to work on his city's subway line. Wanting to get a little extra exercise on a good weather day, he got off the train two stops early so he could walk the final mile or so to work.
As he was leaving the station, M.N. noticed a woman who looked familiar. It then registered that he had gone to grade school and high school with the woman a few decades ago. While they were never close friends, she had friended him on Facebook several months earlier. That's how he recognized her when he saw her.
"Annabel?" he asked, as he neared her on the station platform (although that's not her real name). She looked over, acknowledged him, and they exchanged pleasantries, agreeing that they should try to get together some time for lunch or coffee.
But while M.N. was not close to Annabel when they were growing up together, he remembers distinctly how many members of his class used to pick on Annabel, making fun of her looks or awkward style. M.N. can't remember if M.N. was anymore awkward than other classmates. While he didn't join in the teasing of Annabel, M.N. does recall that he never interceded when such events took place by telling any of his friends who were among those doing the teasing to stop.
M.N. vividly recalls Annabel being in tears or desperately trying to avoid her taunters in the hallway. He regrets that he never tried to put a stop to it back then. Now, however, he wondered whether he should have said anything to Annabel when they met on the subway platform.
"Should I have apologized for not having tried to stop some of the teasing, particularly when it came from friends I hung out with?" asks M.N. "Was I wrong to make small talk with Annabel without acknowledging those painful episodes?"
While it would have shown exceptional character for M.N. to go against his friends and discourage them from the teasing, he's likely not alone in turning a blind eye to such behavior. Perhaps fear of being teased himself kept him from interceding. The right thing would be for other students to stand up for any kids being bullied or teased and try to put a stop to it. Had M.N. done so back in the day that would likely have been good for both him and Annabel.
But M.N. can't undo what's done. Should he have brought up the teasing? It was certainly not necessary on such a brief encounter on a subway platform. That he acknowledged Annabel, and was gracious toward her was the right thing to do.
If M.N. and Annabel do decide to have coffee or lunch together sometime later, the discussion may turn to the issue of the teasing. But while M.N. can be apologetic, the right thing would be to take Annabel's lead about how much she wants to discuss the past. Giving her control over that would be a small token to make up for not trying to help put a stop to behavior she couldn't control in the past. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues. 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 
F ollow him on Twitter: @jseglin  
(c) 2015 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Doing right even when it might embarrass others

When H.D. decided to replace the lighting fixture in his home bathroom, he decided to buy a new one from the nearby big-box hardware store. He lived in an old house and the existing bathroom fixture hadn't been changed in more than 40 years, but he was hoping it would be a simple job.
H.D. drove to the store, found a fixture he thought might look good, purchased it and returned home. After he tried to install it, he decided it didn't look as good as he hoped so he took the fixture off the wall, put it in its box, and returned to the store to find a different one.
Once in the store, H.D. found a few fixtures in the lighting section he liked better. He then solicited the help of a customer service representative.
The customer service rep was very helpful and offered to open up a few boxes containing the other fixtures in which H.D. was interested so he could see them up close. The customer service representative was very attentive and spent several minutes helping H.D.
Eventually, H.D. decided on the one he liked best. It cost a few dollars more than the earlier one that H.D. had purchased. H.D. explained to the customer service representative that he had to return the fixture he bought before purchasing this new one.
"Do you have your receipt for the old one?" the customer service representative asked.
H.D. told him that he did. The customer service representative then offered to put the more expensive fixture in the old fixture's box and told H.D. he could just leave the store with it.
Even though it seemed that the customer service representative was trying to do him a favor, the offer didn't feel quite right to H.D. since the new fixture cost a few dollars more. Still, H.D. didn't want to embarrass the customer service representative by declining his offer. So he let the customer service representative put the more expensive fixture in the less expensive one's box and left the store.
"What should I have done?" asks H.D.
By allowing his concern about embarrassing the customer service representative guide his decision, after he made his offer, H.D. effectively stole from the big box store. His instinct about the offer not feeling "quite right" was a good one.
The right thing would have been to decline the offer, return the less-expensive fixture, and then pay the asking price for the new fixture. H.D. was wrong to participate in deceiving the store by leaving with a more expensive item in the wrong box. It would have been no different had he pocketed a handful of nails equal to the price difference and left the store without paying.
If the customer service representative had the discretion to offer the slightly more expensive item for the same price, he should have told H.D. that. He didn't indicate that he did and the suggestion of switching boxes suggests he knew what he was doing was wrong. Wanting to help H.D. find the right fixture was a good thing to do. That's part of the customer representative's job. Offering to help him defraud his employer was wrong. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues. 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 
F ollow him on Twitter: @jseglin  
(c) 2015 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should counselor tell client she lives close by?

For several years, A.L. has worked as a mental health counselor in a neighborhood health center in the Northeast. She sees clients of all ages, most of whom live in the part of the city where the center is located.

A.L. also lives close to the center, but until recently her clients lived in neighborhoods other than hers. A few weeks ago, as A.L. was meeting with a client for the first time, she started collecting basic information and family history, as she does with all new clients. She had no recollection of ever having seen the client before, but when it came time for her to give her address, A.L. noticed that the client lived on the same street as she did, about five or six houses down the block.
Typically, A.L. says that she does not disclose personal information about herself during her meetings with clients. She stays focused on the clients' needs and works with them to address whatever issues they might be facing.
But A.L. is concerned that she might run into the new client in her day-to-day life. If she does run into her new client in the neighborhood, she wonders if she might find it odd that A.L. never mentioned living so close by.
She's run into clients before at the grocery store, a close-by shopping mall, or the movie theater. On such occasions, she always waits for the clients to acknowledge her before she says anything to them, out of respect for their privacy.
Still, A.L. wants to know if she should tell her new client that they are neighbors since they live so close to one another. Doing so might avoid some awkwardness if they run into one another, she figures, but it also would go against how she has decided to disclose her personal information to clients in the past. She wants to know the right thing to do.
I am not a mental health counselor nor a psychologist, so I do not know if A.L. licensing agency has a particular set of guidelines that address such instances. If it does, obviously A.L should consult and follow any professional guidelines.
Absent her concerns being specifically addressed in her professional guidelines, when it comes to disclosing any personal information about herself, the right thing for A.L. to do is to treat this new client precisely in the same manner she has disclosed information to other clients in the past.
It's important for the new client to know about A.L.'s experience and credentials. If it hasn't been relevant or useful for A.L. to disclose personal information, then she should stick with that approach.
If A.L. does happen to run into her new client in their neighborhood, she has experience on how to deal with such occasions. Just as she has waited for clients to make the first acknowledgment in the past when she has run into them in public places, she should wait for the new client to do so as well.
The important thing is for A.L. to continue her practice of focusing on her clients' needs. Unless disclosing her home's proximity to the client's is relevant to the client's care, the right thing is not to disclose the information. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues. 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 
F ollow him on Twitter: @jseglin  
(c) 2015 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should I tell my emailing friend he's offensive?

For several years, D.R. has been on a friend's email routing list. Whenever the friend receives an email he finds amusing or provocative, he forwards it on to a dozen or so friends so they can share in the laughter. D.R., who receives the emails on his personal email account, rarely finds the emails, which are typically full of musings on aging or observations about the decay of society, funny or thought-provoking.
The friend rarely emails D.R. with anything other than a forwarded email, so D.R. has reached the point where, more often than not, he simply deletes any emails from the friend if he sees they are being forwarded to a group of recipients. Occasionally, if D.R. does read an email and it repeats a long-debunked myth about a particular celebrity or politician, he will respond to his friend with a link to the information (typically from Snopes.com or Politifact.com) correcting the myth with words like, "Not true. See here," followed by the link.
But lately the friend's emails have taken on a disturbing tone. D.R. has noticed that some of the emails being forwarded could be construed as sexist, racist, or anti-Semitic. D.R. never thought of his friend as a racist, sexist, or anti-Semitic before, but the emails he is forwarding present him in this light to D.R.
D.R. doesn't believe debunking such emails will get to the real issue of how offensive and inappropriate he finds them. He can't imagine that his friend doesn't know that these particular emails are tinged with such hateful sentiment. He could choose to stop reading group emails from the friend entirely and just delete them as they arrive.
"But is that enough?" asks D.R. "Shouldn't I tell him how offensive I find these particular emails?"
If the emails offend D.R., simply deleting them is not enough. At the very least, he should ask his friend to take him off of his email routing list for these things he forwards. (Given that he doesn't find even the inoffensive ones interesting, he would have been wise to do this long ago.)
But if D.R. truly finds some of the messages to be offensive, the right thing would be to tell his friend how offensive he finds them and why.
D.R. is unlikely to change his friend's viewpoint if these emails reflect how he thinks about such things. But if no one says anything to the friend, he will simply continue to forward on such things, giving no thought to how they are being received.
D.R. might find that the friend doesn't pay as much attention to the type of things he forwards on as D.R. thinks he does. Some people too freely forward on, repost, or retweet stuff they haven't bothered to read closely. Pointing out the offensiveness gives D.R.'s friend a chance to think more carefully about what he chooses to forward on to others. It also gives him the opportunity to let the originator of such emails know how offensive they are.
But D.R.'s friend might be fully aware of the nature of his emails. Now he will know how offensive D.R. finds them and to take D.R. off of his email routing list, since D.R. wants nothing to do with the spread of such things. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues. 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 
F ollow him on Twitter: @jseglin  
(c) 2015 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should I embellish my salary to try to get more from new job?

M.K. had been searching for a new job for months. Finally, after sending out countless resumes, going on several interviews, and being a finalist for more than one position only to lose out to other candidates, M.K. was told by the hiring manager of one of his prospective new employers that he would be offered a job, pending his references and credentials checking out. Given that he had long believed that he was not advancing swiftly enough in his current job, M.K. was ecstatic about the offer.

But after the hiring manager from the new company called him to give him the news, he was stumped by one of the questions she asked: "What's your current salary?"
M.K. was hopeful that the new job would pay more, ideally much more, than he was currently making. He was reluctant to give the actual salary he was making out of fear that the new company might decide to pay him less than it might be willing to if they didn't know how much he currently made. He writes that he thinks he'd prefer that the hiring manager make an offer first and then he could respond if the offer wasn't enough.
He wonders if he should "fudge a bit" and tell the manager roughly what he makes, but add in such things as retirement contributions and other benefits for which his current company currently pays. "Technically, that wouldn't be wrong, would it?"
It's always easy to advise someone what they should have done in hindsight. Here's a case where M.K. should have asked earlier on in the hiring process about the salary range for the position. If it wanted to attract an employee who might be interested in the job, the prospective employer should have given M.K. or other finalists for the position a sense of the salary range earlier in the hiring process.
But now that he is where he is in the process, M.K. is left with the choice of providing the information requested, asking the prospective employer to provide him with a salary range first, or "fudging" on whatever information he provides.
The right thing would be to be honest and to avoid fudging about anything. M.K. can tell the prospective employer his current salary as well as any other fringe benefits he currently receives. Alternatively, he could decide to ask the hiring manager to provide him with a salary range before he provides any more information. But he should not lie about what he currently makes.
Providing false information would be wrong and hardly the way to start a new employment relationship. That the prospective employer might check the veracity of the salary information M.K. provides only to find that he was loose with the truth shouldn't be the chief incentive to avoid lying to try to get an upper hand. Not lying should be the chief incentive.
M.K. can and should negotiate as hard as he can to get the best offer. But he should do so expecting it will be as honest with him as he plans to be with it. If he doubts the new company's honesty, he should rethink taking the new job. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues. 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 
F ollow him on Twitter: @jseglin  
(c) 2015 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Honestly writing off book donations

Every year, H.F. donates books to her local library for its annual library book sale run by a nonprofit group set up to provide funds for library purchases. H.F. figures it's a great way for her to clear her shelves for more books and also to donate to an organization whose efforts she supports.

When H.F. brought her boxes of books to the library in the past, there were no volunteers around, so she simply left the books near the door marked "book donations" in the library's basement.
But on her most recent book drop-off, the door to the room was open and a couple of volunteers were busily sorting books. H.F. poked her head in the door and asked if she should bring the boxes of books into the room.
"Sure," one of the volunteers told her. "You can just set them on the table for us to sort through."
As H.F. was leaving the last of her boxes on the table, the volunteer asked her if she needed a receipt for her book donation. (The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) permits donors to deduct from the taxes they owe a fair market price for each book donated to a nonprofit.) "OK," H.F. responded, and then asked the volunteer if she needed to count the number of books she donated so it could be added to the receipt. H.F. also mentioned that she had dropped off books in the past for which she never got a receipt.
Typically, organizations will guide donors on how much they can deduct for each item given. But the volunteer told H.F. not to worry about counting the books. She then took out three pre-printed donation forms, dated one with the current date, and then dated each of the others for two prior dates a few months earlier in the year.
She instructed H.F. that generally she could deduct $2 for each hardback donated and $1 for each paperback. "Just don't say it was more than $200 worth of books at any one time. The IRS might question that." She left it to H.F. to estimate how many books she had donated to the library, both this time and on previous visits that year.
"I don't have a clue how many books I've donated on past visits," H.F. writes, "let alone how many were hardbacks or paperbacks." She wants to know if it was wrong for the volunteer to advise her to estimate using the $200 cap on each form the volunteer recommended.
Yes, it was wrong. The volunteer was not only advising H.F. to be unethical by fudging the amount she donated, she was also advising her to lie to the IRS. Lying to the IRS is illegal and inadvisable.
H.F. isn't required to take any deduction for the books she donates to the library book sale. If she does, however, the right thing is to keep an accurate count of how many books she does donate and then to take only the deduction for which she is entitled. And the library support group would be wise to do the right thing and do a better job of training its volunteers on how to instructor donors to accurately account for their donations. 
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues. 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 
F ollow him on Twitter: @jseglin  
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