Surplus missionary funds

We have an elder who is finishing up his service with a net positive balance in his account (Ward Missionary Fund:{elder}). At the same time we have another mission who is heading out to the MTC for whom there is financial need. Can the surplus be transferred from one ward missionary account to another ward missionary account?

aclawson wrote:We have an elder who is finishing up his service with a net positive balance in his account (Ward Missionary Fund:{elder}). At the same time we have another mission who is heading out to the MTC for whom there is financial need. Can the surplus be transferred from one ward missionary account to another ward missionary account?

Certainly that can be done. Once the first missionary finishes his service with a surplus, those surplus funds should be transferred to the Ward Missionary Fund (unspecified), since donated missionary funds cannot be returned, and more was donated and designated for him than can be used. And unspecified ward missionary funds can certainly be used to support any missionary in the ward, particularly one with financial need.

You can do this with two transfers (one to from Elder One to Ward Missionary, and another from Ward Missionary to Elder Two) or with one (directly from Elder One to Elder Two). It doesn't really matter -- the effect is the same.

I had that a few years back, CHQ's instructions were to notify the family that donated the extra and ask them where they wish their funds to end. No refunds, so they can have it moved to Fast offerings, Tithing, or to another missionary. I am assuming that the returning missionaries were funded fully by the family. If he was funded by ward funds then yes as AEBrown suggested would be the course to follow.

It is not normally necessary to move funds between subcategories in the Ward Mission Fund. While the standard monthly deductions are taken from the individual missionary's subcategory, the ward is only accountable for the total overall ballance of the ward mission fund. Funds designated for a specific missionary should be deposited into the subcategory (i.e. donations from family), while other ward mission funds would go into the general ward mission fund.

By following this pattern, the bishop can eaisly identify which families are meeting their obligation to support a missionary, while keeping accurate records on who is being supported by the ward as a whole.

There is no need or purpose served by zeroing out a ward mission fund subcategory other than to create extra work for a clerk. Excess donations that may need category reassignment should be handled as suggested above.

daveywest wrote:There is no need or purpose served by zeroing out a ward mission fund subcategory other than to create extra work for a clerk.

I disagree. In the past (up until the CUBS transition) it was technically optional to use ward missionary fund subcategories. Now that we have no control over creating or deleting these subcategories it's even more important that we manage them well. I used to audit other wards and sometimes I'd see leftover subcategories for missionaries who had already returned home, gone to school, got married, had children, etc. but there was still some small positive or negative balance that stayed behind for years. I'd say that within a couple of months of a missionary's return it is essential to make sure there's a zero balance in the subcategory and then uncheck the "active" box for that subcategory. This is not busywork for the clerk but should be considered a standard procedure. It's the only way to make outdated subcategories disappear as they should.

While you can't refund surplus donations made to the missionary fund, there is a workaround that can give the missionary or his family back their overpayment. If missionary A comes home and has inadvertantly overpayed by $400, you could transfer that surplus $400 to another actively serving missionary B, and then ask Missionary B's family to pay $400 to Missionary A. I wouldn't do this all on my own as the finance clerk, but I'd suggest it to the families involved and they can agree to do it if they choose. I think this would only be appropriate if Missionary A had paid for their entire mission, i.e., they had not used any ward mission funds during their mission.

funaddict wrote:While you can't refund surplus donations made to the missionary fund, there is a workaround that can give the missionary or his family back their overpayment. If missionary A comes home and has inadvertantly overpayed by $400, you could transfer that surplus $400 to another actively serving missionary B, and then ask Missionary B's family to pay $400 to Missionary A. I wouldn't do this all on my own as the finance clerk, but I'd suggest it to the families involved and they can agree to do it if they choose. I think this would only be appropriate if Missionary A had paid for their entire mission, i.e., they had not used any ward mission funds during their mission.

This approach sounds very risky from a tax perspective. I would urge extreme caution and consultation with legal and/or tax experts before embarking on this.

aebrown wrote:This approach sounds very risky from a tax perspective. I would urge extreme caution and consultation with legal and/or tax experts before embarking on this.

OK, I'll recommend that they spend a couple hundred dollars with a CPA or a tax expert before they go ahead with the trade. I'm not trying to upset the apple cart, but I'm not talking about thousands of dollars here. My example was for $400, one months missionary support payment, which is about the maximum overpayment I'd expect to see. I would guess it would be something a lot more modest, like $5 to $50 or so. I'm not a tax expert but it seems like the "A" family that overpaid would only claim the amount that they actually paid, minus the refund. The "B" family would only claim the amount that they paid to the church, so they might miss out on a few dollars in their itemized deductions. Losing out on $400 for family "A" would probably be a bigger loss than the few dollars that the $400 would represent to family "B" toward their itemized tax deduction. If they didn't itemize, then it wouldn't matter. That's why I'd leave it up to the families to decide if they want to agree to do it.
I'm assuming that both families are honest in their tax reporting.

On a similar note, are donations to a missionary by another ward member supposed to be confidential? One sister in our ward came in and asked what the current balance was on her son's mission account. I printed up his account statement and gave it to her, and she was surprised to see that a couple in the ward had made several donations to his account. When she thanked the couple for their generosity, she said that the brother was kind of bent out of shape that she knew about it. I guess that was my fault, but I didn't know that he expected it to be confidential. Any thoughts?

funaddict wrote:On a similar note, are donations to a missionary by another ward member supposed to be confidential? One sister in our ward came in and asked what the current balance was on her son's mission account. I printed up his account statement and gave it to her, and she was surprised to see that a couple in the ward had made several donations to his account. When she thanked the couple for their generosity, she said that the brother was kind of bent out of shape that she knew about it. I guess that was my fault, but I didn't know that he expected it to be confidential. Any thoughts?

All donations should be confidential. So if someone wants to know the balance of their son or daughter's account, it's best to just print a summary. Any details given to a donor should reflect only that donor's contributions.

funaddict wrote:While you can't refund surplus donations made to the missionary fund, there is a workaround that can give the missionary or his family back their overpayment.

In my opinion it would be far better to allow the family to have the excess missionary contribution transferred to tithing or fast offering. This would still allow the family to benefit from the extra contribution, without involving other members in the process.

lajackson wrote:In my opinion it would be far better to allow the family to have the excess missionary contribution transferred to tithing or fast offering. This would still allow the family to benefit from the extra contribution, without involving other members in the process.

How would that work with the example above where somebody else contributed to the missionary? Surely the missionary's family does not deserve that tax benefit, and if the donation is from outside the ward (grandparents, friends, etc.) there is no way to credit them. Even if this transfer were to be attributed to no individual person (avoiding complexities mentioned previously) would MLS and the CUBS side of things move the money into the bank account to be cleaned out the next day (most donations need to be deposited and then removed this way) or would it all just magically happen in CUBS? Any official guidance in the handbook or other policy on excess missionary funds? This page does not state explicitly, but it may be implied that transfers should only happen within the Ward Missionary category (and subcategories):

https://tech.lds.org/wiki/CUBS#Subcategories

dajoker wrote:How would that work with the example above where somebody else contributed to the missionary? Surely the missionary's family does not deserve that tax benefit, and if the donation is from outside the ward (grandparents, friends, etc.) there is no way to credit them.

It is irrelevant whether someone else contributed to the missionary. A member can request that his or her donation be recategorized. If someone other than the parents donated on behalf of a missionary, they get the tax statement that shows they made a payment, which is unaffected by this recategorization. And for the missionary's parents, since we're only talking about a recategorization, there's no change in the donation totals for them either.

The only impact other people's contributions would make is that the resulting surplus would enable the missionary's parents to recategorize a missionary donation as tithing (for example) and still have the mission costs fully funded.

dajoker wrote:Even if this transfer were to be attributed to no individual person (avoiding complexities mentioned previously) would MLS and the CUBS side of things move the money into the bank account to be cleaned out the next day (most donations need to be deposited and then removed this way) or would it all just magically happen in CUBS?

As with all changes in category, it all happens automatically. In the case of a ward missionary donation being recategorized as tithing, money would be removed from the ward missionary account and credited to tithing. Those tithing funds would then be treated as all tithing funds, and be automatically swept to CHQ.

dajoker wrote:Any official guidance in the handbook or other policy on excess missionary funds? This page does not state explicitly, but it may be implied that transfers should only happen within the Ward Missionary category (and subcategories):

https://tech.lds.org/wiki/CUBS#Subcategories

The financial clerk makes no transfer -- this is simply a change in categories. MLS and CUBS may make transfers behind the scenes, but the change is made by adjusting the donation, not by using the Enter Transfer feature.

dajoker wrote:How would that work with the example above . . .

It does not work with somebody else's contributions, only with my own. If I contribute to the Missionary Fund and it is determined that the contribution was not necessary, I might ask that the contribution be recategorized to tithing or fast offering. I am not given a refund or credit for someone else's contribution. It was my contribution and is still my contribution. I have merely asked that it be credited to a different category.

This has no effect on someone else who contributes.

This is just an example. In my particular circumstance, I would probably just leave the contribution in the ward missionary fund to be used as needed there. But I understood the original question to concern a family who contributed more than needed to the missionary fund.

lajackson wrote:In my opinion it would be far better to allow the family to have the excess missionary contribution transferred to tithing or fast offering. This would still allow the family to benefit from the extra contribution, without involving other members in the process.

I agree that this would be a much more elegant solution than my earlier suggestion, and wouldn't involve any other parties. I hadn't thought about being able to re-categorize a missionary donation as tithing or Fast offering. That's one of the many benefits of participating in this forum. Thank you.

I realize that this discussion topic is from a few years ago, but thought that others might benefit from this information.

Our ward has started using Online Donations. We had a released missionary still showing up in the Ward Mission drop down of the online donations.

The Church support person I talked to said the following is required to have this account disappear, from the online donations missionary donation list:

• Missionary is released from their mission
• The Ward Mission account for this missionary needs to have a $0 balance for 60 days

We moved the missionary's balance to the General Ward Mission fund. Now we need to wait the 60 days for this account to disappear from online donations.

By-the-way, once your ward has been approved, your ward members can make online donations here: https://www.lds.org/donations