Tech Forum

Our state president received permission to solicit donations from members to help defray costs of special event being held for the community (a traveling religious exhibit coming to our region).

Members made their donations to an OTHER account at the local units, and those funds were sent in to the stake from time to time.

Our stake did the same thing (with permission) to assist a unit whose members and community have many special needs. We collected the funds locally at the units in an OTHER account, forwarded them to the stake, and the stake administered their use.

Now when people view their early tithing statements (passed out for member to review before visiting with the Bishop), MLS/CUBS marks ALL OTHER donations as non charitable. These donations (funding the exhibit and assisting the unit/community with special needs) were not made for personal gain.

One of our unit clerks pointed this out to me a couple days ago. Members were not pleased with those and some other charitable donations that are labeled as OTHER being marked as non charitable as well. I cant see his print outs from here right now, but I think when we back tracked one member's OTHER donations they may have extended to Book of Mormon funds, Perpetual Education, and some of the subcategories the church has been putting under OTHER you used to see at the top of the unit financial statements when they pulled them back out from the weekly batches as well.

I understand the classic girls camp OTHER funds are not tax deductible, but these funds are not of that nature.

Is anybody else having this problem? How do we fix it?

My first thought is that the stake president should check with the source that approved this for guidance.

I'm not sure as there is a way to fix this in MLS.

You could try calling Local Unit Support, but I understand the wait times are quite long. So you might send a email message.

chartman wrote:Now when people view their early tithing statements (passed out for member to review before visiting with the Bishop), MLS/CUBS marks ALL OTHER donations as non charitable. These donations (funding the exhibit and assisting the unit/community with special needs) were not made for personal gain.

One of our unit clerks pointed this out to me a couple days ago. Members were not pleased with those and some other charitable donations that are labeled as OTHER being marked as non charitable as well.

The stake financial clerk and ward financial clerks should have been aware of the fact that all payments to any locally created subcategories of the Other category are not considered to be charitable donations, and will not appear on the year-end Official Tax Statement. This policy has been in place for many years, and has not changed with CUBS. There is no way to make such donations appear as charitable, since only Tithing, Fast Offerings, various Missionary categories (including Book of Mormon and General Missionary Fund), and the special other categories (Perpetual Education, Humanitarian Aid, etc. -- but these are no longer under Other with the CUBS system) are considered to be charitable donations.

However, members are welcome to discuss the issue with their tax adviser and make their own determination as to what tax deductions they would like to claim -- it's just that the Church will not receipt the donation as charitable. It's too bad that the leaders and clerks involved did not make members aware of this up front.

chartman wrote:I cant see his print outs from here right now, but I think when we back tracked one member's OTHER donations they may have extended to Book of Mormon funds, Perpetual Education, and some of the subcategories the church has been putting under OTHER you used to see at the top of the unit financial statements when they pulled them back out from the weekly batches as well.

I have never seen that. Every donation to Book of Mormon, Perpetual Education, and other similar Church-created categories have always been considered to be charitable donations, in my experience. If somehow that is not the case, then you should track the donations in question back to the actual donation batch and make sure they are in the correct category. If they are not, they should be promptly corrected. If they are in the correct category, but do not appear as charitable donations on the Official Tax Statement, then you need to contact Local Unit Support about this right away.