Excess tithing contribution - what to do

Discuss questions around local unit policies for budgeting, reconciling, etc. This forum should not contain specific financial or membership information.
toddmorr
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Excess tithing contribution - what to do

#1

Post by toddmorr »

hello everybody. We have a member who mistakenly contributed too much in tithing. Meaning, she made the check out for too much. The check matches the donation slip, and of course the batch is completed correctly, but she contributed $800 instead of $80. Brain freeze I guess. She would rather not wait for her income to catch up with her tithing donation. What do we do? I don't think we can cut a check against the tithing category. thanks...
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aebrown
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Re: Excess tithing contribution - what to do

#2

Post by aebrown »

You could recategorize the donation to be $80 of Tithing and $720 of some subcategory of Other:Authorized Member Financed Activities. Then you could write a check to refund the $720. Normally tithing is not refundable, but where it is clearly a mistake, this seems like it could be a reasonable solution.
waynecooke
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Re: Excess tithing contribution - what to do

#3

Post by waynecooke »

We had a similar situation a couple of years ago. What we did, with the approval of the Bishop, of course, was to "loan" the Sister the amount she over paid, and each week when she paid her "Tithing", we would put it into the "Other account" from which we had " borrowed" it. Fortunately we had an account with enough money to do this. And all worked out well.
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gregwanderson
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Re: Excess tithing contribution - what to do

#4

Post by gregwanderson »

I think aebrown's solution creates a more honest "paper trail" of what happened whereas creating a loan program in MLS makes it harder to figure out the true story.
Gary_Miller
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Re: Excess tithing contribution - what to do

#5

Post by Gary_Miller »

I think Bro Browns way would be the best way to do this.
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gregwanderson
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Re: Excess tithing contribution - what to do

#6

Post by gregwanderson »

I'm a little shocked that this solution has been presented so quickly and nobody has blasted it yet. After all, we had a rather lengthy and "dramatic" discussion about a similar situation in this thread from September 2011. People were talking about fraud, tax lawyers, clear violations of church policies, multiple calls to CHQ, giving Fast Offering assistance to the donor, etc.. But, this time, aebrown's simple solution has not been challenged.

(It's funny how, when I offered up an identical solution back in September 2011 I was blasted for it but, today, when someone else writes it, it's fine. Makes me feel like a rather unpopular fixture around here.)
jdlessley
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Re: Excess tithing contribution - what to do

#7

Post by jdlessley »

@mrrad,
Sorry you are taking this so personally. People do change their minds or positions on matters over time. After reading the thread to which you linked, I don't see a perspective of "blasting" your option proposed then. There were reminders of current policy and procedure and caution in implementing any option that might run afoul of Church policy or some laws. The discussion then occurred over several days. It has been but a few hours now into this discussion.

I personally would not be so quick to follow any recommendation made here without first checking with CHQ. The technical aspect of what you proposed long ago and was again mentioned in this thread is possible. Whether or not it is the correct or even good procedure to follow is why we discuss them and try to bring to light all aspects of the issue.
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Have you tried finding your answer on the ChurchofJesusChrist.org Help Center or Tech Wiki?
waynecooke
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Re: Excess tithing contribution - what to do

#8

Post by waynecooke »

True. All of these ideas are just ideas, either ones that have been tried, or just someone's untried idea. Has anyone ever called CHQ and asked them? I haven't, we just came up with an idea that worked.
lajackson
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Re: Excess tithing contribution - what to do

#9

Post by lajackson »

waynecooke wrote:Has anyone ever called CHQ and asked them?
I have. The proper solution two years ago was for the stake president to call the Finance Department, explain the situation, and for them to issue a check directly to the member for the excess amount. This takes a lot of time, and in our case there had to be a workaround while the member was waiting for the check from CHQ. (The workaround we used did not involve Church funds.)

In our case, the contribution was questioned as unusual because of the amount (10 times, as with the original post, but ours was a much larger overall amount). But everything else was in order so a call was not made to the member. None was required, of course.

It would have been better if the check had bounced.

I acknowledge the clever workarounds presented. As already pointed out, the suggestion aebrown made is probably the simplest way and best for audit purposes, although I do not know if the Finance Department would allow a ward to do that.

If the issue were to come up again, I would certainly suggest it to them and try to get them to allow it. But I can think of a couple of legal and tax reasons they probably would not.

It never hurts to ask, though.
russellhltn
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Re: Excess tithing contribution - what to do

#10

Post by russellhltn »

lajackson wrote:It would have been better if the check had bounced.
Now there is an idea. Assuming the error was caught after the deposit and before the bank opens.
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