Ask Slashdot: Could Open Source be used as a Tax Writeoff?

kernel submitted this interesting question: "Say that I am a manager at a for-profit software consulting firm. One of the projects I supervise relies on a GPL'd software application. The team has greatly improved the application, releasing the changes back to the public. In some twisted sense, this seems like charity work; is there some way my company could justify the expenses as a tax writeoff? If not, why not?" Good question! kernel continues...

"This seems like a great rationalization for companies otherwise unwilling to devote resources to Open Source software. If companies would tend to use and improve Open Source products more often if they had a way to recoup some of their investments (via tax savings), we would all be better off. My only thought is that pieces of free software could be loosely 'held' by a legitimate charitable organization and time spent working on those products could be written off as a donation. Any insight greatly appreciated."

Anyone else think this might be another way to leverage the Open Source development model into big business?