Who Can Sign the Tax Statements?

Our Bishop had surgery and is a bit laid up. As is his style (never slows down), he has overdone it recently and is pretty much down in bed.

We need the tax donation statements signed.
Can his counselors do that for him?

The first counselor can with the approval of the stake president. That is the procedure when the bishop is not available for situations such as this. The alternative is to have the stake president sign.

As a follow-up question, is the 31st of January a hard deadline for getting these statements distributed in the US? If not, I can slide this out a week or two until the Bishop feels better.

Legally? No, I think the other recent threads on this explain that there is no requirement for charitable orgs to send these out automatically at all. Is the Church's rule to have them all out by 2012-01-31? Yes:

http://tech.lds.org/wiki/Donor_Statements

The Official Tax Statement should be delivered to each donor by January 31 of each year. Although they can be delivered anytime in January, it is prudent to wait until the middle of January so that any late-December donations paid for by checks that were then returned unpaid by the bank can be properly canceled.

With all of that said, I know more people who wait until April to do taxes than those who do them in February. I've never sent in my statement and only need it should the IRS decide to audit me. Would I be willing to wait another month? Sure. Would most? Probably. Should you ask? Probably. Is it still against the policy? Apparently so. Maybe this is one of those times you can counsel with leaders (Stake President) to see if a delay is appropriate since the wording is 'should' and not 'must'.

AB

dajoker wrote:With all of that said, I know more people who wait until April to do taxes than those who do them in February.

Yes, but April is a very busy season for doing tax returns. My personal tax preparer is already chomping at the bit, asking her customers to bring in their taxes as soon as they are ready to avoid the April rush. Wait too long and your preferred tax preparer may not be available to you.

Just a followup comment... The Stake Pres gave permission for the 1st C to sign - which he did.