Mailing Tithing Statements

I have two questions:

1. Do we need to mail Tithing Statements for members who have moved from the Ward in 2013?

2. Is there an easy way of getting mailing addresses for non-Ward member donors other than going through one by one on the Donor screen and copying their address to an envelope.

Thanks,

Jeff

jspector wrote:Do we need to mail Tithing Statements for members who have moved from the Ward in 2013?

If you mean the donor statements, or Tithing and Other Offerings Statement, then the answer is no. Tithing Settlement Statements are not given to the donors but rather they are kept by the ward. If you mean the tax valid statements, or Official Tax Statements, then the answer is yes.

jspector wrote:Is there an easy way of getting mailing addresses for non-Ward member donors other than going through one by one on the Donor screen and copying their address to an envelope.

Yes. To print the mailing labels of donors to whom you will be mailing tax valid statements go to Finance | Print Donor Statements. Click File | Print Mailing Labels from the main MLS menu. Select, or check the box, of each donor for whom you want to print a mailing label.

Note that if there is no mailing address for a donor in MLS the donor name will appear on the donor list following the procedure given above but there will be no address listed. You will be at your own devices to get addresses for donors without addresses in MLS. If you cannot find an address using reasonable methods, then you are required to keep the tax valid statement on file for the record retention period. It will then be up to the donor to contact the ward to get the tax valid statement.

Also note that headquarters sends a tax valid statement to the unit of record at the end a January for members who have made donations to more than one unit during the year. Generally only those units in which the member's records were at the time of the donation will be included in the statement from headquarters.

Thanks, Just to clarify. I thought that members who moved from the ward would get complete Tax Statements from their new Ward. I know that we got a bunch of them last year for our members who moved in during the year.

I've been looking, but our ward hasn't received the official tax statements for members who have paid in other wards. When is that supposed to show up? If I need to get these statements to the members by the end of January, shouldn't I have those statements now?

ctbarrett wrote:I've been looking, but our ward hasn't received the official tax statements for members who have paid in other wards. When is that supposed to show up? If I need to get these statements to the members by the end of January, shouldn't I have those statements now?

Unfortunately, I haven't seen them yet either.

Last year, our statements for multi-unit donors didn't come until February 3rd. Perhaps they came in the week before that, but we didn't come in mid-week that week and so didn't see them until the 3rd. I expect they want to make sure all the end-of-year donations are processed and entered before generating the final statements.

Thanks for the hint. It worked perfectly!

ctbarrett wrote:I've been looking, but our ward hasn't received the official tax statements for members who have paid in other wards. When is that supposed to show up? If I need to get these statements to the members by the end of January, shouldn't I have those statements now?

Where do they show up? In the mail?

They will show up in the Finance Statements section of MLS, usually accompanied by a Message explaining what to do with them.

I appreciate the information here, since I have had the same questions. To the last point about combined unit statements, we got ours in MLS Sunday morning, so I was able to print and distribute most of them during church. Worked great, and I'm glad to see the church going this direction.

Regarding the question of mailing the tax-valid statements when you are unable to hand-deliver them. I'm new to the calling, so this is my first time through tithing settlement and tax forms, and I have become very frustrated with the lack of concrete instructions on this topic, specifically what to do when no address is available.

We received a number of donations last year from members of other units, either visitors, or full-time missionaries donating fast offering, etc., and most of these do not have addresses in their donor records. There are also a few members who moved out during the year, but didn't leave a forwarding address or haven't contacted me. I have combed through the last five years of instructional letters in MLS and re-visited the online clerk training, and there is no official documentation anywhere describing what is to be done in that situation.

The only place with the answer is this post (and one or two others from several years back):

jdlessley wrote:
If you cannot find an address using reasonable methods, then you are required to keep the tax valid statement on file for the record retention period. It will then be up to the donor to contact the ward to get the tax valid statement.

While I really appreciate the information, forum posts hardly seem authoritative on such an important subject. Why are there no official instructions more recent than 2006 stating the rule about retaining undelivered tax-valid statements for 1 year? And what constitutes "reasonable methods" for tracking people down? What have others of you done in the case of full-time missionaries donating fast offerings in your units? Do I need to see if the mission office can provide a forwarding address?

Additionally, now that the church is providing the consolidated statements for people who moved during the year, are we still required to mail the ward-only statement to them? It seems unnecessary, but the instructions from the church are unchanged: "Distribute tax-valid statements before Jan. 31." Period.

I understand you certainly can't enumerate and give a solution to every possible circumstance or exception, but is there a reason we can't have a little more detail and clarification through official channels, like what to do when no address is available, and whether the new consolidated statements remove the the need to mail to members who have moved away? My understanding of US tax rules is that it is ultimately the member's responsibility to request and obtain these forms prior to filing their taxes if they need it. So the church has set this Jan 31 distribution deadline policy voluntarily and for any number of good reasons, which I have no problem with, except that they provide no fall-back when meeting the deadline is impossible.

Hopefully this doesn't sound too much like I'm complaining, because I am really just extremely baffled by the lack of information and looking for some documentation that explains all of this.

jasonmbray wrote:Additionally, now that the church is providing the consolidated statements for people who moved during the year, are we still required to mail the ward-only statement to them? It seems unnecessary, but the instructions from the church are unchanged: "Distribute tax-valid statements before Jan. 31." Period.

If you examine the article Annual Charitable Cash Contributions Official Tax Summary Statement, you'll see that it states that for donors who donate in more than one unit, this ACCCOTSS (it's a mouthful even as an abbreviation) is sent. It then says that "In the past, donors would have to obtain a tax-valid donation statement from each unit to which he or she donated."

Although I would hope that the instructions would be a bit more explicit, that seems to state pretty clearly that it is no longer necessary for donors in this situation to obtain a tax statement from each unit. Now it's certainly not always obvious which of your former members are in this situation, so this won't help in all cases, but it may reduce the burden on clerks in some cases.

Note that this applies only to donors in the United States who donated to more than one unit.

If I were to guess as to why there is so little "official" policy on this, I would say because it may depend on where you are at. Financial policy, especially tax related, is very country dependent and so there may not be a standard way of doing it that would work world-wide. It can be very frustrating sometimes to not have clear, easily accessible direction when there is potentially legal liability involved (though in reality you could always just go back and print a new one if they come asking for it).

The official channel for questions like this is for you to contact your stake clerk. If they aren't sure, they can escalate the question to the finance department, or the local administrative center (for units outside the US and Canada), who can provide a definitive answer for your locale.

jasonmbray wrote:Regarding the question of mailing the tax-valid statements when you are unable to hand-deliver them. I'm new to the calling, so this is my first time through tithing settlement and tax forms, and I have become very frustrated with the lack of concrete instructions on this topic, specifically what to do when no address is available.

At the Print and Distribute Donor Statements page, a comment says

If donors are no longer members of your ward, deliver or mail donor statements to those you have addresses for. Keep the rest for one year in case donors ask for them.

While I recognize that this is hardly official, it is the instruction I have always received when I ask the question. I have sent feedback on that page to ask that this be clarified, but that is the policy we have always followed.

Ultimately, it is the member's responsibility to ask for tax donation statements. As a courtesy (and by Church policy), we do all we can to see that they receive them by the end of January each year.

In the US, the donor is responsible to obtain it, and the charitable organization is responsible to provide it if requested. Other approved documentation can include bank records, cancelled checks, etc. http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p1771.pdf (see pages 3 and 4)

lajackson wrote:I have sent feedback on that page to ask that this be clarified

I received an answer to the feedback, but it was not complete. I have not received a response to my request for further clarification.

benjamincarleski wrote:Last year, our statements for multi-unit donors didn't come until February 3rd. Perhaps they came in the week before that, but we didn't come in mid-week that week and so didn't see them until the 3rd. I expect they want to make sure all the end-of-year donations are processed and entered before generating the final statements.

Hi - Not sure if this question was ever answered. Here's a similar question:

I'm the finance clerk in my ward. I've had a few people asking if they can get donation history coming from other wards. That is, we are their primary ward (and have been for years), but they want to use our local MLS to get their donations when they visit other wards (an example might be donating to a missionary at a different branch or doing fast offerings when vacationing, etc). Any help here?

Thanks,

If thier membership records were never in that ward, I'd have to say "no". The donations find thier way to the home ward via the membership number. But currently there is no way to do that unless thier record were in the ward.

eliasobr wrote:I've had a few people asking if they can get donation history coming from other wards. That is, we are their primary ward (and have been for years), but they want to use our local MLS to get their donations when they visit other wards (an example might be donating to a missionary at a different branch or doing fast offerings when vacationing, etc). Any help here?

This is not available at the present time. The combined statements you received were for members who lived in another ward, donated there, and then moved to your ward.

When a member contributes to the ward missionary fund of another ward, there is no way at present for that ward to enter the membership record number, which would tie the records together.

So the answer is, the member would have to contact each ward they donated to and request a statement be mailed.

I was thrilled to see the combined statements for new ward members come in time for us to distribute prior to 31 January. But we knew to look for them since there was no notice that they were there in Financial Statements. I ended up sending one out to a former Ward member because their new Ward couldn't seem to find them and I wasn't successful in explaining to the member where his clerk should look.

Better notice and instruction would be helpful.

Mikerowaved wrote:So the answer is, the member would have to contact each ward they donated to and request a statement be mailed.

So how would members from other wards, like BYU wards, obtain statements for 2013?

jdbitton wrote:So how would members from other wards, like BYU wards, obtain statements for 2013?

They would contact their BYU wards. Their current ward clerk will be able to help them with contact information.

lajackson wrote:

jdbitton wrote:So how would members from other wards, like BYU wards, obtain statements for 2013?

They would contact their BYU wards. Their current ward clerk will be able to help them with contact information.

Hopefully the member knows the name of their prior ward(s). But from what I've seen people write for their current ward, that could be iffy. Their current membership clerk may have the last ward their records were in, but only the last.

It does not matter if the ward has completely changed since then - the financial information stays with the unit number (name), not with who served in the ward at the time.