Tech Forum

If a husband and wife pay their tithing separately should they be recorded separately or put under the name? I guess my question is should the donations be recorded according to the donation slip even if it means setting up an account for the husband and one for the wife?

Yes they should be recorded as the individual that is making the donation.

Speak with your ward clerk, or finance clerk. They can set it up any way you wish. If they have no input from you, then yes, they should go by the name on the slip.

If there's a question, ask the donor. However, remember that the donor usually has a good reason for filling out the donation slip in a specific way. Perhaps the husband and wife track income separately and their tithing must be kept separate to keep things straight. Maybe one of them has a consistent salary and the other's income is sporadic. Perhaps one spouse has decided to be a full tithe payer and the other has decided not to be.

If a donor ever complained about the way a donation was recorded I'd much rather be able to say, "I entered exactly what was on the slip" than "I asumed it should have been entered another way."

The realities of the church's system is that you can either have your donations recorded separately, or both to one individual. Crediting the payments to a "joint" account is not possible. (Although the spouse can be listed on the end-of-year tax receipt).

Concerning my question about husband and wife donations being recorded separately or merged under one name our area audit supervisor contacted Salt Lake and was informed that the Church wide policy is they ought be merged under one name unless the couple make a request to the Bishop to have them recorded separately.

gordo1933 wrote:...the Church wide policy is they ought be merged under one name unless the couple make a request to the Bishop to have them recorded separately.

If there are existing donations under each of their names, that course of action seems rather drastic, since merging can't be undone. Why not make a simple call to the donor first to ask if they want the donations merged?

gordo1933 wrote:Concerning my question about husband and wife donations being recorded separately or merged under one name our area audit supervisor contacted Salt Lake and was informed that the Church wide policy is they ought be merged under one name unless the couple make a request to the Bishop to have them recorded separately.

This is news to me. I would love to "have it in writing" if anyone can provide a more definitive source.

gordo1933 wrote:Concerning my question about husband and wife donations being recorded separately or merged under one name our area audit supervisor contacted Salt Lake and was informed that the Church wide policy is they ought be merged under one name unless the couple make a request to the Bishop to have them recorded separately.

I am having a real hard time believing there is a Church policy stating that. I have never seen anything in writing nor heard anything closely resembling that. I am with mrrad in that I would have to see that in writing to believe it. That goes against the procedure currently in place to record donations for members as they are submitted on the Tithes and Other Offerings slip. The only exception to recording in the name as it appears on the slip is a joint donor donation. That is currently not possible since the CUBS conversion. There can be only one member name on a member donor account.

My initial impression of the instruction described is a response to the CUBS conversion that changed the ability to have a joint donor account. Some members who had joint donor accounts before the conversion still make donations using both names on the Tithes and Other Offerings slip. I believe the instruction from headquarters was to enter such a donation under one name or the other name simply because it is not possible to have any name on a member donor account other than the name of record on the membership record. The pre-CUBS ability to change the donor name to reflect both the husband and wife has been eliminated.

The other part about making a request to have have them recorded separately more probably refers to some splitting of the single donation made in both names on one Tithes and Other Offerings slip between the husband and wife.

It does not makes sense to have a donation made by the wife and a separate donation by the husband merged into one donation under one name. There is no possible reason I can think of that would remotely require that to be done - at least not in the United States.

Merging donations made by the husband and wife into one account creates tax problems in the U.S. for couples who file separate tax returns and itemize deductions. There is no way to prove to the IRS what donations belong to the husband and what donations belong to the wife.

Can (as of 2013) a husband and a wife both be listed as the donor?