Ward activity - tax deductibility

[cwoolf]

One of the wards in our stake is planning an activity in the community and they are looking for donations from the ward to fund this activity. Is there a way to do this so that the donations are tax deductible? I am not sure if donations to Other or Budget accounts get flagged as tax deductible or not on members' donation statements at the end of the year.

Thanks for the help on this.

Cory

[aebrown]

One of the wards in our stake is planning an activity in the community and they are looking for donations from the ward to fund this activity. Is there a way to do this so that the donations are tax deductible? I am not sure if donations to Other or Budget accounts get flagged as tax deductible or not on members' donation statements at the end of the year.

The short answer is no, there is no way to receive donations that are considered charitable contributions by the Church for any category where the ward can control what happens to the funds. Funds donated to categories considered to be charitable contributions are almost all swept to Church headquarters (except for Ward Missionary, which of course can only be used for full-time missionaries).

See the RKATS article Donation Categories, where you will see that any donations to Other "are not considered charitable contributions and will not appear on the member's annual Official Tax Statement, but they will appear on the other donor statements."

As for actual tax deductibility for donations made by members that do not appear on the Official Tax Statement, that's something each member will decide in conjunction with their tax advisers.

[cwoolf]

Thanks. This was very helpful.

[russellhltn]

You haven't mentioned the details of this activity, but I wouldn't necessarily assume that whatever the church does is tax-deductible. It may be, but then again, it might fall under a different section of the non-profit tax code and require it's own paperwork.