diff --git a/conservancy_beancount/rtutil.py b/conservancy_beancount/rtutil.py
index 86653633da35421c01c2bd66b17cdeda4daf4a5a..6893750df539ac031a041485de4d7c9c02fadd76 100644
--- a/conservancy_beancount/rtutil.py
+++ b/conservancy_beancount/rtutil.py
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@
 # Full copyright and licensing details can be found at toplevel file
 # LICENSE.txt in the repository.
 
+import datetime
 import functools
 import logging
 import mimetypes
@@ -13,6 +14,7 @@ import re
 import sqlite3
 import urllib.parse as urlparse
 
+import dateutil.parser
 import rt
 
 from pathlib import Path
@@ -21,6 +23,7 @@ from . import data
 from beancount.core import data as bc_data
 
 from typing import (
+    cast,
     overload,
     Callable,
     Iterable,
@@ -40,6 +43,28 @@ TicketAttachmentIds = Tuple[str, Optional[str]]
 _LinkCache = MutableMapping[TicketAttachmentIds, Optional[str]]
 _URLLookup = Callable[..., Optional[str]]
 
+class RTDateTime(datetime.datetime):
+    """Construct datetime objects from strings returned by RT
+
+    Typical usage looks like::
+
+        ticket = rt_client.get_ticket(...)
+        created = RTDateTime(ticket.get('Created'))
+    """
+    # Normally I'd just write a function to do this, but having a dedicated
+    # class helps support query-report: the class can pull double duty to both
+    # parse the data from RT, and determine proper output formatting.
+    # The RT REST API returns datetimes in the user's configured timezone, and
+    # there doesn't seem to be any API call that tells you what that is. You
+    # have to live with the object being timezone-naive.
+    def __new__(cls, source: str) -> 'RTDateTime':
+        if not source or source == 'Not set':
+            retval = datetime.datetime.min
+        else:
+            retval = dateutil.parser.parse(source)
+        return cast(RTDateTime, retval)
+
+
 class RTLinkCache(_LinkCache):
     """Cache RT links to disk