Non-Debt Credit Card

[FEDUKE404]

Overlooked

....and

if your church's annual statement suffices, I wonder why the IRS does not list that as documentation for gifts in excess of $250.

...

I must be totally misunderstanding this information from IRS Publication 526:

Contributions of $250 or More

You can claim a deduction for a contribution of $250 or more only if you have an acknowledgment of your contribution from the qualified organization or certain payroll deduction records.

If you made more than one contribution of $250 or more, you must have either a separate acknowledgment for each or one acknowledgment that lists each contribution and the date of each contribution and shows your total contributions.

Woe is me, I guess....

[joanmcq]

Just make sure your church's statement has ALL of the required wording, etc on it. I've seen quite a few in audits where the info wasn't all there and they were disallowed unless they had the copies of the checks. And even then, if the checks were over $250, they didn't have a proper statement. Now one of these audits was with an extremely picky auditor, but when a payroll deduction contribution is disallowed because of improper wording.....

[travis bickle]

No, woe is ME ...

I must be totally misunderstanding this information from IRS Publication 526:

Contributions of $250 or More

You can claim a deduction for a contribution of $250 or more only if you have an acknowledgment of your contribution from the qualified organization or certain payroll deduction records.

If you made more than one contribution of $250 or more, you must have either a separate acknowledgment for each or one acknowledgment that lists each contribution and the date of each contribution and shows your total contributions.

Woe is me, I guess....

because when I read IRS Tax Topic 506, revised Sep 23, 2011, and I see . . .

"For any contribution of $250 or more (including contributions of cash or property), you must obtain and keep in your records a contemporaneous written acknowledgment from the qualified organization indicating the amount of the cash and a description of any property contributed. . . . ((my emphasis))

I understand that to mean that a separate receipt is required for donations in excess of $250 ... guess I went and forgot what the word CONTEMPORANEOUS means. I am so glad that you taught me that CONTEMPORANEOUS and ANNUAL STATEMENT are identical.

Woe is me

[Gary2]

I understand that to mean that a separate receipt is required for donations in excess of $250 ... guess I went and forgot what the word CONTEMPORANEOUS means. I am so glad that you taught me that CONTEMPORANEOUS and ANNUAL STATEMENT are identical.

I'm afraid you'll have to pass the buck on this one to Congress, which rewrote the definition at section 170(f)(8)(C)

(C) Contemporaneous

For purposes of subparagraph (A), an acknowledgment shall be considered to be contemporaneous if the taxpayer obtains the acknowledgment on or before the earlier of—

(i) the date on which the taxpayer files a return for the taxable year in which the contribution was made, or
(ii) the due date (including extensions) for filing such return.

In other words, in this case, contemporaneous does mean annual.

For what it's worth, Pub 526, to its credit, doesn't use the word contemporaneous. I'm sure we're all aware that the IRS pubs, while extremely useful, are not authoritative. The IRS tax topics don't even have utility as a redemptive value; I suggest avoiding them entirely.

[travis bickle]

tyvm

thank you very much