Charitable Contrib Documentation

[erchess]

An organization my Dad supports has notified him that going forward they will provide receipts only for individual contributions over $250 and will expect you to make do with your cancelled check or credit card statement for smaller contributions.

Is the organization risking trouble from the IRS for this?

Am I right that you need a receipt for all contributions you want to deduct?

[Gary2]

An organization my Dad supports has notified him that going forward they will provide receipts only for individual contributions over $250 and will expect you to make do with your cancelled check or credit card statement for smaller contributions.

Is the organization risking trouble from the IRS for this?

Am I right that you need a receipt for all contributions you want to deduct?

Assuming they really mean $250 and above, they're going by the letter of the law. Receipts from the organization aren't required for individual cash contributions of $249.99 and less, so long as there is a satisfactory bank or payroll record.

[Jiggers]

An organization my Dad supports has notified him that going forward they will provide receipts only for individual contributions over $250 and will expect you to make do with your cancelled check or credit card statement for smaller contributions.

Is the organization risking trouble from the IRS for this?

Am I right that you need a receipt for all contributions you want to deduct?

The organization is fine with what they are doing.

Actually, IRS Pub 1771 says that an organization that does not acknowledge a contribution does not incur a penalty.

But without the acknowledgement, for amounts of $250 or more, the taxpayer gets no deduction without the acknowledgement

You don't need an acknowledgement from the organization for any single contribution of less than $250 to be able to claim the deduction. But you must have substantiation, such as a cancelled check.

[FEDUKE404]

Clarification request

By the letter of the law, the organization IS within the law although their attitude might bother me a bit were I to be donating to them.

In any case: Are they saying they will not provide an individual (stand-alone) receipt for, let's say, a $100 donation but they might otherwise include that donation on an annual summary or similar?

FE