Tech Forum

Sorry if this has been asked already.

I processed and deposited tithing 5 days ago (1/5/2014) and one check was mailed to the bishop on December 26th but did not get processed until 1/5/2014. The member wants it to count for tax year 2013.

This link https://www.lds.org/callings/melchizede ... s?lang=eng

says I can do the following.
- Delete the donation out of the batch.
- Add the donation to a new donation batch dated on or before December 31 of the previous year. You must indicate that the funds were received or postmarked on or before December 31 of the previous year.
- File the batch documents with the previous year's financial records.

Does it matter that the bank deposit has already been done for this check? If so, that means I would create a new batch but would not have anything to deposit at the bank.

utefan001 wrote:Does it matter that the bank deposit has already been done for this check?

No

utefan001 wrote:If so, that means I would create a new batch but would not have anything to deposit at the bank.

Correct. You will have an adjusted batch report for the 5 Jan donation batch and a new donation batch report for the 31 Dec donation batch. Make sure you remove the donation slip from the 5 Jan donation batch paperwork and file it with the 31 Dec 2013 donation batch paperwork.

The question that has to be asked is.
Was the donation recieved by the Bishop before January 1st?
Just because the member said they mailed it does not count as being recieved.

Gary_Miller wrote:The question that has to be asked is.
Was the donation recieved by the Bishop before January 1st?
Just because the member said they mailed it does not count as being recieved.

No, that's not a relevant question, unless it was hand-delivered. For a donation sent through the mail, the question is: was it postmarked in 2013? If so, then it should be processed as a 2013 donation, regardless of when the bishop received it.

For such donations, even though the instructions do not require it, I've always considered it prudent to save the envelope with the postmark, just in case any questions arise later.

Gary_Miller wrote:Just because the member said they mailed it does not count as being recieved.

That is correct.

Gary_Miller wrote:The question that has to be asked is.
Was the donation recieved by the Bishop before January 1st?

In the case of something going though the postal service, the question is the postmark.

Note, this isn't an issue of church policy, but IRS "law of the land". The postmark trumps received date. This works exactly the same way as getting your tax return postmarked by April 15th.

Correction

The question that has to be asked is.

Was the donation received by the Bishop or postmarked before January 1st?

Just because the member said they mailed it does not mean it was post marked in time.

However if it was put in the mail on the 26th more than likely it was post marked.

aebrown wrote:For such donations, even though the instructions do not require it, I've always considered it prudent to save the envelope with the postmark, just in case any questions arise later.

I was reviewing the training last week to check on just this kind of case and found that retaining the envelopes is now a stated step of the process. The Prior Year Donations topic on the training site, which covers the original scenario at the bottom, also has as the last step of the MLS Procedures to "Make sure that you retain any supporting evidence such as envelopes with previous year postmarks and file them with the batch documentation." I don't recall that in previous versions of the year-end procedures though, so perhaps the added emphasis is something new.

benjamincarleski wrote:

aebrown wrote:For such donations, even though the instructions do not require it, I've always considered it prudent to save the envelope with the postmark, just in case any questions arise later.

I was reviewing the training last week to check on just this kind of case and found that retaining the envelopes is now a stated step of the process.

Thanks for the update. I was relying on my memory of the previous instructions. It's certainly good to know that this helpful step has been added.