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§ 10.5 EARMARKING OF GIFTS FOR INDIVIDUALSAnother court opinion nicely illustrates the subtleties that can arise in makingdistinctions in this area. The charity involved was a tax-exempt charitable andreligious mission. Donors sent many checks to the mission, on many of whichwere entered the names of particular missionaries; the receipts from the missionreflected “support” for missionaries identified by name. Sometimes the checkswere accompanied by letters that identified missionaries by name, indicatingthat the contribution was for their support. The mission sent the donors a pamphletstating that contributions were allocated equally for the missionaries, interms of personal allowances and service support. The donors’ contributionswere placed in a common pool used for missionary support and were disbursedin accordance with the policy of the mission as described in the pamphlet.The court concluded that the mission had exclusive control, pursuant to itspolicy, over the administration and distribution of the funds contributed. Thedonors’ designation of the missionaries to be supported by their contributionswas portrayed by the court as “no more than a manifestation of [the donors’]desire to have their donations credited to the support allowance of those individuals.”156 The court found that the donors “knew and intended that theirfunds would go into a common pool to be distributed only as the [m]ission itselfdetermined.” 157The court thus rejected the IRS’s assertion that these contributions were notdeductible because they were made for the support of certain designated individuals.That position was dismissed thus: “It seems to us that [the IRS] has chosenthe wrong case to be puristic in [its] effort to collect the sovereign’s revenue.” 158Indeed, the court concluded that the IRS was “hoist with [its] own petard,” 159 inthat a revenue ruling had reached a conclusion similar to the one in this case. 160The IRS considered a situation concerning a tax-exempt charitable and educationalorganization that provided support for the composition and performanceof musical works. A married couple expressed interest in supporting the compositionof a work by a particular composer; six months later, they made a contributionto the charity. At the time of the gift, the charity did not make anycommitment to use the funds to commission a work by the composer. Fivemonths later, however, the charity, the composer, and an orchestra entered into anagreement by which the charity paid the composer a fee to commission a workand to reimburse his expenses for appearing at the premiere of the work; theamount of the donors’ gift was “sufficient” to enable the charity to pay thesecosts. The IRS ruled that the gift was not impermissibly earmarked for the benefitof the composer and thus was deductible. 161156 Peace v. Commissioner, 43 T.C. 1, 7 (1964).157 Id. at 7.158 Id. at 8.159 Id.160 Rev. Rul. 62-113, 1962-2 C.B. 10.161 Priv. Ltr. Rul. 200250029. 377