Tech Forum

Note: This question pertains to Canada, and may not be applicable in other countries. Other than those who may be participating in a pilot, members in Canada currently do not have the ability to make donations online or print their own official tax receipts on lds.org.

With the recent changes in LCR for Tithing Settlement, we have gained the ability to print Donor Statements that include donations made in previous Units. [Our Ward was created in March - so many of our members made donations in other units this year.]

When creating Donor Statements in MLS, only donations made in the current unit would appear on a Donor Statement. Previously, members needed to contact their previous unit's Clerk to obtain a Donor Statement for a record of donations in previous units in order to see a complete history of that year's donations. Fortunately, another recent change for us; members can now view a detailed history of their donations for the past 10 years on lds.org.



Even though 2016 Official Tax Receipts will not be printed until sometime in January 2017. I generated one in LCR to try out the new feature. The tax receipts are now pre-signed by someone representing "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Canada" (the new legal entity for the Church in Canada; changed in 2014). This apparently means Bishop's do not have sign each Donor Statement themselves (or authorize the Clerk's to stamp each one). A great time saver.

Despite being able to generate a Donor Statement for members of our Ward that includes a record of donations made in previous units this year, the sum indicated on the official tax receipts only includes donations made in the current unit.

So members will still need to contact their previous unit Clerk to obtain an official tax receipt. This would make sense if the unit's presiding authority was responsible for signing tax receipts, but since it appears that tax receipts are being issued by the Church in Canada, not the individual units, it would make sense (and seem possible) to have the sum on the tax receipt reflect all donations made in any Canadian unit during the year.

Any chance an update to LCR before January 2017 will make it possible to print a single tax receipt for a member with the total sum of all donations made in Canadian Wards/Branches? Obviously donations made in units out of Canada would not be eligible, and thus would be excluded.

WAFKT wrote:Any chance an update to LCR before January 2017 will make it possible to print a single tax receipt for a member with the total sum of all donations made in Canadian Wards/Branches? Obviously donations made in units out of Canada would not be eligible, and thus would be excluded.

Sounds like a bug. You should use the Feedback link on the LCR page to ask about that. My experience recently is that they are pretty quick with an answer. Unless one of the developers happens to notice the post, there isn't anyone else who could answer your question here. And I have a feeling the developers are pretty busy right now.

Thanks. I wasn't sure the best place to post my query. Figured I'd try here in the hopes that a developer for LCR spotted it or at the very least garner support from other Canadian Clerks to push the issue further. I thought the feedback link at the bottom of pages on lds.org was just to provide feedback to web masters on the format and function of the site and not technical issues related to records accessed through LCR. I will give it a try and see what progress I get.

WAFKT wrote:Any chance an update to LCR before January 2017 will make it possible to print a single tax receipt for a member with the total sum of all donations made in Canadian Wards/Branches?

Have you verified this is the case with someone who has donations that show up on their record? The reason I ask is there are any number of reasons that donations may not be associated with a MRN and consequently not show up on that member's record. (Including be associated with the spouse's MRN.)

Having all Canadian contributions on one receipt would be very nice. I also noticed that the receipts come from "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Canada" instead of a specific ward. I also noticed that there are only two copies of the Canadian tax receipt now. So I am assuming that there are no physical copies of the receipts kept at the ward level anymore? It makes sense as we will have electronic copies that could be reproduced as necessary but I just want to verify before sending these receipts out.

Are we allowed to print the Official Tax Receipts for members only once in the new LCR site? I generated these receipts once on December 25th, 2016 and printed them just because I wanted to try the new feature. Now I try to generate the updated receipts and print them again, but I couldn't find the link or function to generate the link to print the tax receipts. Is this a bug? So far, I was able to generate updated individual donor statements which are not for tax report purpose.

At least for the US, the church had taken away the ability to generate the report. You can only print what the church generates.

skanger wrote:Are we allowed to print the Official Tax Receipts for members only once in the new LCR site? I generated these receipts once on December 25th, 2016 and printed them just because I wanted to try the new feature. Now I try to generate the updated receipts and print them again, but I couldn't find the link or function to generate the link to print the tax receipts. Is this a bug? So far, I was able to generate updated individual donor statements which are not for tax report purpose.

same issue in my ward in Canada, cant find a way to print official tax receipts anywhere. I sent a message on the feedback section, they told me they removed the tab because of an issue, but its fixed now. its not fixed now.

I'm still having the same problem. Under donations we have a few people that use "My financial statements do not need to be printed by my Ward" but they are unable to print off the tax receipts.

In order to get tax receipts for member contributions in prior wards, the member or a leader in their current ward needs to contact the Global Services Center number and request those receipts. This would include a) members that had selected "My financial statements do not need to be printed by my Ward" in their donations settings on lds.org and b) members that are deceased during the year but had contributed to a ward or wards other than the ward where they resided when they died. There could be other times when this is required but these are the two I know from calling GSC myself. As a ward or branch leader you can use the online LCR to generate an official Canadian tax receipt for any charitable contributions to your ward or branch for any members that live or are deceased and your ward had their membership when they became deceased.
I hope that they will allow Canadians to print their tax receipts online in the near future but the GSC representative said that presently, for Canadians, the only way to get tax receipts from prior wards is to personally call GSC or for an authorized leader of the ward to call GSC and the receipts would be e-mailed.