husband passed away

One of our brethren passed away this year. All of the donations were under his name. His wife continued to donate the rest of the year. Now when I print out tithing settlement forms they do not show the donation under the husbands name and I cant figure how to show all the donations under her name. If I print a donor statement I can print his, but I will need to show all of them for her taxes. Anybody had to deal with this?

jacksonmiller wrote:One of our brethren passed away this year. All of the donations were under his name. His wife continued to donate the rest of the year. Now when I print out tithing settlement forms they do not show the donation under the husbands name and I cant figure how to show all the donations under her name. If I print a donor statement I can print his, but I will need to show all of them for her taxes. Anybody had to deal with this?

Tithing settlement forms can only be printed for current members of the ward; that explains why you can't print such a form for him. But you can always print a donor statement, which includes a YTD Donation Summary that you could print for his donations and give to the wife at the same time you give her her tithing settlement form. Also, you can print the Official Tax Statement for any donor, so you can print that for his donations and a separate one for her donations.

Since there are two separate donors for 2012, you'll have to live with having two separate statements, but you are able to print all the needed statements. There is no need to show all the donations under her name.

Discuss this possibility with the donor: What about merging the husband and wife information into one donor record (hers) for the currrent year? Depending on how she manages her finances, this could make things a lot easier for her or a lot more difficult to sort out. But it seems like it would be a lot simpler because you said the donations were exclusively in his name until his passing and then they were exclusively in her name. Merging the donation record and making it all in her name should simplify things for both her and for the ward clerks.

mrrad wrote:What about merging the husband and wife information into one donor record (hers) for the currrent year?

Two donor records, both of which are linked to a MRN, cannot be merged. Only a donor record not linked to a MRN can be merged to another donor record.

The question is if one of them being deceased changes that. At minimum he is no longer a member of the ward.

RussellHltn wrote:The question is if one of them being deceased changes that. At minimum he is no longer a member of the ward.

The donor status changes from member of unit to out of unit for a deceased member. In both status situations the records cannot be merged. MLS will not list any donor record linked to a MRN in the "merge from" list of donors.

The only way for the deceased spouse's donations to appear as the living spouse's donations is to edit each donation and change the donor name.

If a living spouse is going to file a "married, filing jointly" return** then having a tax valid statement for the living spouse and a tax valid statement for the deceased spouse is no issue.

Note: **In the US, The IRS explains, "If your spouse died during the year, you are considered married for the whole year and can choose married filing jointly as your filing status" (from Publication 501).

I haven't tried this but maybe it would be worth a try. First, change the deceased to a non-member/misc and then try merging. Would that work? Of course, if this causes more problems than it solves then nevermind.

mrrad wrote:I haven't tried this but maybe it would be worth a try. First, change the deceased to a non-member/misc and then try merging. Would that work?

The record "Type" can be changed to Nonmember. However, there is still a MRN as part of the donor record. It is the presence of a MRN that prevents merging.

The best thing to do is leave it alone and just explain to the spouse that it does not change anything with her donations or her husbands donations, or her ability on filing income taxes. Show her where here name will appear on the EOY tax statement as the spouse. You could give her the husbands tax statement now as its not likely to change. Sometimes just talking and helping the member to understand how it works takes away allot of worry.

While it's our understanding that it doesn't make a difference - I think we should be directing them to their tax professional and not be giving advice.