Imgage by Grok
Milk Saving Starving Children Foundation
I kid you not. Milk Saving Starving Children Foundation (MSSCF) was an actual organization. It filed a 990-N for several years. I asked Grok to create an image for it. I am skeptical about the 600 glasses of milk statistic, but so it goes. Somebody would have to be drinking a lot of milk to make up for me.
Anyway, MSSCF has the distinction of getting the first Tax Court memorandum opinion of 2026. It is TC Memo 2026-1.
The IRS revoked MSSCF’s exempt status with a final adverse determination dated February 25, 2022. MSSCF filed a petition to the Tax Court on May 26, 2022 – timely, although cutting it really close. IRS filed a motion for summary judgment. Special Trial Judge Diana Leyden took MSSCF’s response as a request for more time, which was granted. When the new deadline passed without further response, Judge Leyden granted the IRS motion.
Here are some of the high points. When MSSCF applied for exempt status in 2001, it described its planned activities as:
“The Milk Saving Starving Children Foundation will raise money to purchase rice, soy, and/or powdered milk. It will solicit these products from their manufacturers. The milk will then be distributed world-wide to starving children.”
In 2001 the board decided to purchase and renovate a building. They opened a coffee shop known as Cafe Beignet there in 2003. There was an addition to the building in 2009. The property was rented to various tenants including two pizza shops and an Indian restaurant.
On the milk front, there was $159.60 worth sent to Haiti and Ecuador in 2001. There was some discussion in 2008 about local milk shipments. Milk donations of $1,100 were indicated on the 2008 return. In 2011, powdered milk donations ceased. They started back up in 2020 when the audit was underway. Annual golf fundraisers started in 2010, but it is unclear where the raised funds went.
“The IRS found that petitioner’s primary activity was operating a coffee shop, Café Beignet, and petitioner’s primary sources of revenue were from renting the Property and its addition, as well as its golf fundraiser. The IRS concluded that the funds raised by the above activities were not used for charitable purposes, as demonstrated by petitioner’s tax returns and financial documentation.”
It is possible that there is another side to this story and Kimberly Orazzi, one of the officers, just gave up or misunderstood the Tax Court’s directions. In order to defeat summary judgment, there needed to be something offered that indicated there were “genuine issues of material fact”.
An intriguing question that I am not looking into is whether the building was considered exempt from property tax.
Other Coverage
Paul Streckfus covered the opinion in the EO Tax Journal (2026-4 – January 7, 2026). Steckfus found the result in favor of the IRS unsurprising, but was wondering why the IRS had three of its top attorneys on the case. He also noted that the opinion reaffirmed the Better Business Bureau opinion that held that a single non-exempt purpose precludes exempt status regardless of the number or importance of truly exempt purposes”.
Lew Taishoff also covered the case in Milking The Exemption.
What This Brought To Mind
One of my personal jokes was thinking about going over to the dark side and starting a dubious charity. What would I call it? I was thinking that it would be a charity that provided veterinary care to the dogs of children of veterans with cancer. Grok came up with so many great images for that, that it is really hard to pick one, but here is an example:
I think my effort to check numerous boxes might have been a little overboard. Milk for starving children would probably work better and, as it happens, there actually was some milk involved in all this, just not all that much apparently.
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