Who Gets Tax Statements For 2010?

[cbweatherman]

I just saw the MLS message aebrown referenced. One quick note to make it easier to send out statements --- If the member's record number is recorded in your MLS, then when you pull them up in the "Add/Edit Donors" section, the address that will show up is the address that the Church currently has on file. I discovered this by a happy accident a few weeks ago, and it made it simple to send the tax-valid statements to those members who had moved during the year.

[ckmcdonald]

I just saw the MLS message aebrown referenced. One quick note to make it easier to send out statements --- If the member's record number is recorded in your MLS, then when you pull them up in the "Add/Edit Donors" section, the address that will show up is the address that the Church currently has on file. I discovered this by a happy accident a few weeks ago, and it made it simple to send the tax-valid statements to those members who had moved during the year.

You're kidding? This sounds too good to be true. Even though I have all mine tracked down and mailed the good old fashioned way already, I can't wait to run down to the church and have a happy accident for myself.

You're saying that if the person of interest has moved but they donated prior in our ward that MLS will have their MRN and will acquire their present (new) address and show it to me in Add/Edit Donors?

[johnshaw]

This was very disappointing to me, based on the CUBS documents, I called Local Unit Support and clarified, the 2nd week of January. I was told that these members would have their statements mailed to them from CHQ. I instructed all my clerks and Bishops that this would happen. NOW, today, when requests have started coming in, I called and Local Unit Support has now indicated that the message received yesterday was sent. But because of some problem it's not now happening. Why else would that message be coming out now? The LUS person told me they had been messaging all month that the statements would be mailed from CHQ.

When I was a head clerk, it was my part of my procedure to print a copy and email a pdf of donations for families that moved out of my ward. I thought it extremely helpful, though, truth be told, most came back asking for them anyway, not remembering they already had it.

[atticusewig]

...Why else would that message be coming out now?

The tradition to send late information. The deadline to send the statements was
Jan 31st, so they send the message on Feb 1st ?

Isn't this like the MLS message that always arrives at the end of January that tells
clerks how to enter donations processed in the new year that were recieved in
the prior year so they will count towards the prior year's taxes. By that time all
prior-year donations are already processed.

To me, it seems that whoever is in charge of sending out these notices isn't
too good with deadlines. But perhaps it is to show the local clerks that deadlines
really aren't that important, afterall, and clerks should just relax.

[wrigjef]

A little patience here bretheren, I expect these Brothers and Sisters have been pulling their hair out for a year or so preparing and transitioning an organization of millions over to CUB's. I'm sure their fun is not over yet and likely won't be for another year or so.

[ckmcdonald]

I just saw the MLS message aebrown referenced. One quick note to make it easier to send out statements --- If the member's record number is recorded in your MLS, then when you pull them up in the "Add/Edit Donors" section, the address that will show up is the address that the Church currently has on file. I discovered this by a happy accident a few weeks ago, and it made it simple to send the tax-valid statements to those members who had moved during the year.

I played around with this a little today. It indeed does as cbweatherman says, and fairly reliably. I tested it on 12 regular donating active HofH's that moved from our ward in 2010. Of the 12, 2 it had no address for (form was blank). Of the remaining 10, 6 had the correct new address and the remaining 4 had a new address I could confirm the city but wasn't sure on the street (odds are they were correct).

Of the 2 with no address, 1 moved at the beginning of Dec and the other 3 weeks ago. It may be that the latter was blank because the move was fairly recent. It would seem the family that moved in Dec (very active) should have their new address registered at CHQ by now.

Is this a new feature of MLS, or am I just the last person to find out about it?

[RossEvans]

I don't think that method works in the post-CUBS world, at least using MLS 3.3.0. I followed the usual practice of printing the statements in two separate batches for separate physical processing -- those in the ward and those out of the ward. The first batch was handled out and mailed. The second batch was printed, but MLS refused to print mailing labels for it.

I tried this again and succeeded in printing mailing labels. The trick is not to try to group the set by household when using File -> Print mailing labels. Print the labels for individual donors instead.

And many of the labels did show new, out-of-ward addresses. Following advice above, I first made a manual pass through the Add/Update Donors menu and opened up each donor I cared about (those with non-zero amounts for whom I had printed statements). But I'm not sure if this step is absolutely necessary because I didn't try without it.

[shawndowler]

I tried this again and succeeded in printing mailing labels. The trick is not to try to group the set by household when using File -> Print mailing labels. Print the labels for individual donors instead.

And many of the labels did show new, out-of-ward addresses. Following advice above, I first made a manual pass through the Add/Update Donors menu and opened up each donor I cared about (those with non-zero amounts for whom I had printed statements). But I'm not sure if this step is absolutely necessary because I didn't try without it.

This is best news I've gotten all week. It's a little bit late for me, but this will save me hours in the future! Amazing that I never noticed this before. I just assumed that once they were gone, their records with their address were gone, too! I wish this were more obvious so everyone would know about this. Some training procedures should include this as a callout in the future. I'm going to go look at the wiki for tithing settlement and year end procedures and see if this is spelled out already. If it isn't, I'm going to add it. If it is, I'm going to emphasize it more, because I was looking for this kind of information and I missed it.