End of Year Tax Statements

How soon will the EOY Tax Statements for 2019 be available? I'm still only able to generate donor tax statements for 2018 and 2017, but not 2019. They are supposed to all be done by end of this month.

jimbloodsworth wrote:How soon will the EOY Tax Statements for 2019 be available? I'm still only able to generate donor tax statements for 2018 and 2017, but not 2019. They are supposed to all be done by end of this month.

No date has been announced, but they will appear before the end of the month. I'd imagine it will be before Sunday since it will be the last Sunday in January.

Okay, I'll increase my patience quotient. (I'm new at this).
Thanks,
Jim

I turned off making my ward print my statement for me. However, I just checked and still cannot generate my 2019 statement yet. I'm not concerned as I'm not quite ready to dive into my taxes yet. Patience is still advised.

I believe US Tax law requires the statements to be available by the last day of January, even though many entities provide it before then (my military retirement statement was available on New Year's Day). As there can be 1-2 weeks into the year for donations to hit for the prior year (example: mailed and postmarked at the end of the year and received by the Bishop after the first Sunday, he brings it to the church the second Sunday to make the deposit as a "last year" donation). We should not expect them until AFTER the 2nd or 3rd week of the month (in my opinion).

jimbloodsworth wrote:They are supposed to all be done by end of this month.

When I was clerk, we would put them all in envelopes and hand out as many as we could on the Sundays after they were available. Then, after the last Sunday of the month, we would address the envelopes and mail them. As long as they are postmarked by 1/31, you are meeting the letter of the law (as I understand - I am NOT a tax law expert).

davesudweeks wrote:

jimbloodsworth wrote:They are supposed to all be done by end of this month.

When I was clerk, we would put them all in envelopes and hand out as many as we could on the Sundays after they were available. Then, after the last Sunday of the month, we would address the envelopes and mail them. As long as they are postmarked by 1/31, you are meeting the letter of the law (as I understand - I am NOT a tax law expert).

Non-profit organizations such as the Church have different rules than most other businesses. Do your best to get them distributed by the end of January (assuming they are available).

In a wonderful catch-22 situation under U.S. IRS rules, the donor must have the statement before they submit their tax return in order to claim a deduction. But the charitable organization is not required by law to provide it. Obviously, if charitable institutions didn't use their best efforts to distribute the statements in a timely manner, there would be a lot of unhappy donors.

And so the Church asks that we distribute as many as we can by the end of January and that we retain any we cannot distribute for at least one year in case the donor requests the statement.

lajackson wrote:(assuming they are available)

I received an email today that my statement is available, and indeed it is.

Hooray! I just printed 67 pages of official statements for the members of my ward who have not opted out of printed statements. Now it's time to fold them and stuff envelopes. On Sunday, my assistant and I will be running around the chapel trying to match names with faces.

This is mostly a commentary with some hope of value for newer clerks, or maybe finance system reviews.

For 2018 and 2019 tax years my experience was that official tax statements were finally available on or after the last Sunday in January. If on the last Sunday it was after our meeting block. This left me rushing to mail all statements so they were at least postmarked before February 1. Unfortunately I expect another last minute delivery this year.

My assistant clerks used to have a little fun distributing statements for a couple Sundays each year. Then we'd only have to mail maybe 10. Mailing a hundred is tough, and it removes $50+ from an already trim budget.

Considering lajackson's insights above, maybe finance folks at HQ could rewrite the related web page instruction/information so clerks who tend see January 31 as an absolute deadline can knock their stress levels down a bit (including me). I've been ignoring the word "should" partly because of my history. I didn't even wonder if nonprofits might have a larger grace period. Professionally I'm used to complying with strict state and federal rules impacting private business.

It would still be nice to have access to official statements much earlier in January. It seems odd that current technology doesn't seem to be able to do so.

I appreciate ongoing access to these forums. They help me support local leaders and ward family. Today my self inflicted stress is a little better managed.

And members can (in the USA, anyway) go in to the online donation site and set the statement so the clerk won't have to print it. That is what I have done so it is one less thing for our current clerk to do. Members can go into the donation site and pull down a digital copy of the form on demand once it is issued, which makes it easier if they are trying to keep their documentation electronic. I think I received an email last year when my tax-valid donation statement was ready (but I have slept since then so my memory from a year ago may not be accurate).

I would always recommend to our ward members that they consider turning off the printout, but would never pressure anyone who still liked to receive a paper copy (their reasons were none of my business).

jpjones~ogr wrote:It seems odd that current technology doesn't seem to be able to do so.

I'm not sure of all the factors, but I'd think part of it is to make sure all the checks deposited in those "Dec 31st" batches, (which might have actually been processed on the first or second Sunday in January) go though and don't bounce (resulting in a cancelation of the donation).

If true, it wouldn't be a limitation of the Church's tech as much as the banking system.

We've been encouraging members to make the switch regarding their statements, and a few have. Maybe more have during 2020. We'll include another note of encouragement with statements we mail this year. Our unit has a higher median age which can affect rate of change, though they were quick to adopt on-line donations shortly after they were available.

I'm not sure check processing would slow things down this much. I remember big late December batches years ago. For the past couple years our live donations have commonly been 6 or less per week, even during tithing settlement. However, my frame of reference is limited to our stake.

In addition to last minute deposits, changes in related bank rules or even internal bank policy could have negative impact.

Oh well. It is what it is, and being recently retired means it's easier to keep up.

Happy New Year !!

Both my wife and I have been submitting tithes through the website, me with my login and she with hers. We both can see the donations on the website. When looking at the tax statement, however, both of us get a statement that shows only donations submitted through my account.
How can we get this adjusted to show all donations, from both of us, through the year?

karenpellett wrote:Both my wife and I have been submitting tithes through the website, me with my login and she with hers. We both can see the donations on the website. When looking at the tax statement, however, both of us get a statement that shows only donations submitted through my account.

She should get a statement showing donations made through her account sign on. If this is not happening, she should ask the clerk to help her contact the Global Services Center for assistance.

Because donations are recorded to individual accounts, you will have two tax statements, one for donations made through your account and one for donations made through her account, even though you both are contributing for both of you. There is not a way that I know of to combine the statememts.

There is a checkbox in the settings to show both spouse names on each statement (you each have to make the change), but as lajackson stated, if 2 different people make donations, there will be 2 statements. The church has no idea what your tax filing status will be (joint or individual) so I think they have selected the best option. It is easy to combine both amounts when filing your taxes, but if a couple were each filing separately, having them combined could make things difficult.

karenpellett wrote:however, both of us get a statement that shows only donations submitted through my account.

So, when she logs into her account, she only sees your donations? Add all her donations were done on that account? That's odd.

I'd double check what account she's signed in under. I'd also check the history. If for some reasons, the donations didn't go though (wrong bank account?), they will be canceled.

Turned out to be some sort of caching issue. When she logged onto her donations using her machine, she got the correct statement. Thanks for all the ideas and direction.

Atohanie wrote:Turned out to be some sort of caching issue. When she logged onto her donations using her machine, she got the correct statement. Thanks for all the ideas and direction.

I'm glad this was resolved for her!

How do I get a year end statement for a deceased member when the member's record has been moved out of the ward? The surviving spouse needs the report for tax purposes

In LCR Finance -> Tithing Settlement -> Year End Statement -> Generate New Statement

I have needed to do this almost every year since becoming a clerk

Tax records for deceased members have been consistently distributed to wards I've served in. A relatively new condition that might affect distribution would be if the deceased member chose to receive statements via their Church web account instead of their unit printing them. Over the years I've distributed more than a few to spouses or families of deceased members.

Though deceased members records are cleared from wards, technically they shouldn't have been moved out, but maybe gathered back to HQ systems.

For members that moved out, the current convention is that their tax statements are either available via their Church web account, or their unit of record gets to print tax statements for them. For a few years I've been printing tax statements for new members that include donations made in other units.

If a member passed away while living in your unit, they hadn't switched to getting statements from their web account, and you don't get a statement to print for them, I'd reach out to Global Service folks.

I believe the selection to not have the statement provided to the clerk only takes it off the automatic generation for the clerk to distribute - it does not remove the donation history from the unit. Unless things have changed since I was released as clerk, the clerk can still generate a tax-valid statement for any member who lived in the ward/branch during the records retention period. If the family of the deceased asks, it is a simple matter for the clerk to generate a tax-valid donation record for the deceased member.

davesudweeks wrote:I believe the selection to not have the statement provided to the clerk only takes it off the automatic generation for the clerk to distribute - it does not remove the donation history from the unit. Unless things have changed since I was released as clerk, the clerk can still generate a tax-valid statement for any member who lived in the ward/branch during the records retention period. If the family of the deceased asks, it is a simple matter for the clerk to generate a tax-valid donation record for the deceased member.

In LCRF, I am not able to generate statements for moved out members, only current and deceased.

kd7mha wrote:In LCRF, I am not able to generate statements for moved out members, only current and deceased.

I'd imagine that the "move out" function only works if the MRN has been associated with the account.

kd7mha wrote:

davesudweeks wrote:I believe the selection to not have the statement provided to the clerk only takes it off the automatic generation for the clerk to distribute - it does not remove the donation history from the unit. Unless things have changed since I was released as clerk, the clerk can still generate a tax-valid statement for any member who lived in the ward/branch during the records retention period. If the family of the deceased asks, it is a simple matter for the clerk to generate a tax-valid donation record for the deceased member.

In LCRF, I am not able to generate statements for moved out members, only current and deceased.

I used to be able to do that with MLS, but don't know if the ability to generate statements in MLS was removed after I was released as clerk a bit over a year ago.