Tech Forum

For over 15 years I have made donations in kind to the church. I donate stock directly via my broker then send e-mail to the Donations in Kind Department letting them know the purpose and identity (me and include my MRN) of the donation. I usually receive a hard copy donation confirmation. Unfortunately, when attempt to view my Donor Statements at LDS.org, the statements show "No donations recorded".

Can you please tell me why this is?

-kt

I don't recall that donations in kind have ever shown on any statement other then the one you get from the donation itself.

In the statement you get from a donation in kind, does it show the value of the donation, or just what was donated (100 shares of Acme Corp)? Because, I doubt if the on-line donation system is set up to handle anything except currency.

Are there any plans to link these donations? Meaning the year end statement from Online Donations, would show the Donations in Kind given, during the year, against your MRN?

I would think it would make Taxes easier, and since they are both made against the same MRN, it should be linkable?

martyriker wrote:Are there any plans to link these donations?

We're rarely told things in advance. But given that most receipts for in-kind donations do not assign a value to the donation, I don't think it would be easy to do.

martyriker wrote:Are there any plans to link these donations? Meaning the year end statement from Online Donations, would show the Donations in Kind given, during the year, against your MRN?

I would think it would make Taxes easier, and since they are both made against the same MRN, it should be linkable?

As russellhltn mentioned, we don't know the church's plans. It may depend on how many donations in kind the church receives. For a long time, I have used Bill Pay to make some donations to the church. For several years, I received two tax donation statements from the church: one from my local unit and another from church headquarters. A few years ago (prior to the rollout of online donations in the US) the statement from church headquarters started showing all my donations. With the online donations system, I can also download one statement that shows all donations (bill pay, online, envelope to bishopric).

You could offer feedback on the donations page that you would like the year-end tax receipt to include in-kind donations. Just go to the online donations and click on Feedback at the bottom of the page and send your suggestion. It does get read.

Thanks for the suggestion.

It is true that a donation of stock to the church has no monetary value attached to it. The same with any 'in-kind' donation, like clothes to Deseret Industries, or bales of hay from a farmer. It is up to the donor to record the date and value of the donation and then to justify it with the IRS if there is an audit. That is true for a donation to any charity. It's pretty easy with publicly traded stock to know the value on the date of donation. But the Church will not acknowledge that. They just give you credit for the actual item donated, so that is why is will not appear on your statement of cash donations. You have no idea if the Church kept the stock in their portfolio or not. Maybe they sold it a year later at a loss. That's OK. Your 'credit' for the IRS and for your own personal tithing records is what it was worth on the day you donated it. I was Treasurer for a charity for several years and regularly wrote letters to donors that just said "Thank you for the donation of 100 shares of ABC Corp on Dec 15....." That was all we could ever give them.