Donations for Haiti relief...

We had several donations for Haiti relief. Some were written out in the "other" space on the donation slip and others in the Humanitarian Aid space with "Haiti relief" on the slip.

Is there a way to designate a Humanitarian Aid donation for a specific cause?

brdrider wrote:Is there a way to designate a Humanitarian Aid donation for a specific cause?

No. Please see jdlessley's answer after mine.

brdrider wrote:We had several donations for Haiti relief. Some were written out in the "other" space on the donation slip and others in the Humanitarian Aid space with "Haiti relief" on the slip.

Is there a way to designate a Humanitarian Aid donation for a specific cause?

The Church has not yet set up provisions to contribute specifically to the Haiti relief effort. For now the only way to contribute through the Church is to make donations to Humanitarian Aid.

Funds contributed to Humanitarian Aid are used for any disaster relief worldwide as directed by the Church Welfare Services Department. Contributions to this fund cannot be specified for a specific disaster.

For the two situations mentioned you need to do nothing for the one that wrote in Haiti relief. You may want to tell them how humanitarian aid donations are handled. For the ones with donations in the Other category you should confirm with the donors that the appropriate designation is to Humanitarian Aid and then either have them fill out a new replacement slip -the preferred method. Or if they are not willing to fill out a new slip you can make the changes on the original donation slip and make the changes in MLS if necessary.

For more information see the wiki article Donation Categories.

LDS Philanthropies can collect donations via the internet as well. You could leave a note indicating that you want the money to go to Haiti, but there's no real guarantee.

Donations through LDS Philanthropies

Truth be told, donating to the Humanitarian effort has some great merits. For instance, while there are still people and organizations putting together fundraisers to raise money for relief efforts, the Church has already sent 80 tons of relief supplies. The first shipment was delivered last Thursday. The Church can do this because it raise funds, purchases supplies, and prepares them for shipment well in advance of a disaster.

jdlessley wrote:The Church has not yet set up provisions to contribute specifically to the Haiti relief effort. For now the only way to contribute through the Church is to make donations to Humanitarian Aid.

Funds contributed to Humanitarian Aid are used for any disaster relief worldwide as directed by the Church Welfare Services Department. Contributions to this fund cannot be specified for a specific disaster.

It's worth noting that the First Presidency has just issued a statement regarding the disaster in Haiti. The accompanying news release states "Church members and others wishing to contribute to the aid efforts may do so by using the Donation Slip they normally use for Church donations or by logging onto lds.org and clicking on Humanitarian Services Emergency Response."

As far as I know, there is no additional category being added to our donation slip (or MLS), so I'll personally be inclined to attribute any donations marked as "Haiti", whether in the Humanitarian Aid line or Other line, as a Humanitarian Aid donation. It would have been nice for the news release to be explicit on that fact, but I digress.

As an aside, you'll note that on the ldsphilanthropies.org donation page, there are indeed numerous subcategories of Humanitarian Aid, so if someone is really worried about their donation going to the right place, they can certainly donate that way. However, I'm personally confident that the money will go exactly where it is needed and will take my auditing lumps if my assumption above is incorrect.

I seem to recall that there were instructions given as to how to do this when the Church first started offering this option. That was back when it was the 1984 Ethiopian famine. But I also seem to recall those instructions were repeated for the 2004 Indonesian Tsunami relief, and for Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

It seems the members remember the process better than the clerks do. I certainly don't remeber the instructions for processing the local donations slips, But I do remember seeing instructions to ward clerks related to the disasters.

oregonmatt wrote:As an aside, you'll note that on the ldsphilanthropies.org donation page, there are indeed numerous subcategories of Humanitarian Aid, so if someone is really worried about their donation going to the right place, they can certainly donate that way. However, I'm personally confident that the money will go exactly where it is needed and will take my auditing lumps if my assumption above is incorrect.

I can understand why people want to have confidence that their money is going to the right place, but really, there's no need for any concern. I'm confident that the Church is giving aid to Haiti that far exceeds whatever amount will be raised in the next few weeks by people giving targeted donations. Thus any donor can be sure that their money is indeed helping people in Haiti.

Even the LDS Philanthropies page has no category for Haiti -- it's just Humanitarian Aid-Emergency Relief. But again, it's going to help people in Haiti. I share your confidence that the money will go where it's needed.

As for auditing, I don't think any auditor would have a problem with a contribution listed as Other:Haiti going to Humanitarian Aid, given that Humanitarian Aid is the only currently documented way of sending money to help in Haiti.

Alan_Brown wrote:I can understand why people want to have confidence that their money is going to the right place, but really, there's no need for any concern. I'm confident that the Church is giving aid to Haiti that far exceeds whatever amount will be raised in the next few weeks by people giving targeted donations. Thus any donor can be sure that their money is indeed helping people in Haiti.

One possible reason it's not specific may be to avoid one of the problems with 9/11 - the donations exceeded the needs. If the money given doesn't go to Haiti, or restock the aid sent to Haiti, it can be used for the next deserving need. I think we can be confident that the church will spend it wisely. I don't think we have any concern it will end up in the wrong place.

Alan_Brown wrote:As for auditing, I don't think any auditor would have a problem with a contribution listed as Other:Haiti going to Humanitarian Aid, given that Humanitarian Aid is the only currently documented way of sending money to help in Haiti.

Just to be clear, you're talking about changing the donor's category. Making an actual deposit to "Other" isn't likely to show up in the year-end tax statement. (I say that because I mis-read your statement the first time.)

Chiming in as a stake auditor, the donations should go to Humanitarian Relief as already mentioned. If the donation is credited to Other, the donor will not only lose the tax refund eligibility but will force the ward clerk to either transfer (change category) later or cut a check to CHQ to clear out the Other category.

As already mentioned, we don't have to worry about the money going to the wrong place (is there a wrong place for humanitarian relief?) since the need worldwide is so great.

Freedom55 wrote:If the donation is credited to Other, the donor will not only lose the tax refund eligibility but will force the ward clerk to either transfer (change category) later or cut a check to CHQ to clear out the Other category.

That doesn't sound quite right to me. My understanding is that only tithing and fast offerings show up in the MLS-printed tax statement as being tax deductible, BUT that does not preclude donations to the"Other" account from being be tax deductible--it is just the member's responsibility to keep track of that status, not MLS's. And example of such a tax deductible donation to the "Other" account might be donations made for BSA camp. If this is incorrect, please let me know.

I also don't recall donations to general or ward missionary funds, Book of Mormon fund, Humanitarian Aid, -- or anything but tithing and fast offerings -- show up on the MLS-printed tax statement. Maybe I've just been missing it all this time.

jbh001 wrote:That doesn't sound quite right to me. My understanding is that only tithing and fast offerings show up in the MLS-printed tax statement as being tax deductible, BUT that does not preclude donations to the"Other" account from being be tax deductible--it is just the member's responsibility to keep track of that status, not MLS's. And example of such a tax deductible donation to the "Other" account might be donations made for BSA camp. If this is incorrect, please let me know.

I also don't recall donations to general or ward missionary funds, Book of Mormon fund, Humanitarian Aid, -- or anything but tithing and fast offerings -- show up on the MLS-printed tax statement. Maybe I've just been missing it all this time.

Actually, donations in all categories are considered charitable contributions (few exceptions to budget) except for those in the "Other" category. Thus, contributions to these categories are reflected on the official tax statement produced by MLS. See the wiki article for reference.

jbh001 wrote:My understanding is that only tithing and fast offerings show up in the MLS-printed tax statement as being tax deductible, . . .

All of the donation categories on the Tithing and Other Offerings slip except for Other (specify) will show up as charitable contributions. MLS is programmed that way.

Other (specify) will show up as non-charitable.

Even though Humanitarian aid, Temple construction, and Perpetual education are recorded in the Other category in MLS when the deposit is prepared, these accounts are recorded as charitable contributions.

jbh001 wrote:BUT that does not preclude donations to the"Other" account from being be tax deductible--it is just the member's responsibility to keep track of that status, not MLS's. And example of such a tax deductible donation to the "Other" account might be donations made for BSA camp.

I think the wording on the tax statement clarifies the situation: "The Church provided no goods or services in consideration, in whole or in part, for the contributions detailed below". As I understand it, if you DID receive "goods or services", then you would not be able to deduct the value of that portion of the donation.

The wording above would not typically apply to a BSA camp. Nor would it apply to most uses of "Other". (But there are exceptions, some of them pre-programed into MLS.)

Hello MRK,

I checked the wiki article you mentioned. My recollection is that a subcategory of Other called "Temple Specific" already exists in MLS and does trigger eligibility for a tax refund. If you create another subcategory called Temple Specific: Vancouver (for example), donations to that subcategory do not attract a tax refund. If my recollection is accurate, the wiki should be ammended to read "use the Temple Specific subcategory" not "add a Temple Specific subcategory".

If my memory is failing (it has on occasion) just disregard this note.

Freedom55 wrote:Hello MRK,

I checked the wiki article you mentioned. My recollection is that a subcategory of Other called "Temple Specific" already exists in MLS and does trigger eligibility for a tax refund. If you create another subcategory called Temple Specific: Vancouver (for example), donations to that subcategory do not attract a tax refund. If my recollection is accurate, the wiki should be ammended to read "use the Temple Specific subcategory" not "add a Temple Specific subcategory".

If my memory is failing (it has on occasion) just disregard this note.

I see no problem with the wiki article. It describes "Other: Temple (Specific)" as a charitable subcategory, and also says "Add a subcategory in Other: Temple (Specific) to receipt and disburse these contributions," which is correct. If you add a subcategory such as "Other: Temple (Specific): Vancouver" the donations will be considered to be charitable donations.

If, on the other hand, you create a subcategory of "Other" such as "Other: Vancouver Temple" then you will indeed have a problem -- the donations will not be considered to be charitable by MLS. So just make sure you are creating a subcategory of the charitable category "Other:Temple (Specific)" and you will be fine.

Hi Alan,

As the saying goes, "been there, done that". When the Vancouver temple was announced we instructed the ward clerks to set up a subcategory to Other - Temple Specific: Vancouver. At the end of the year I started getting calls from clerks advising that donors weren't getting any credit for their donations to that category. I had them change categories back to the generic Temple Specific and the tax receipts then picked up the donations.

I don't know how the program is coded but it appears that anything other than the default categories and subcategories will not be recognised as a charitable donation.

Freedom55 wrote:I don't know how the program is coded but it appears that anything other than the default categories and subcategories will not be recognised as a charitable donation.

As Alan stated, you need to create a subcategory of the "Other: Temple (Specific)" subcategory (a sub-subcategory, if you will). Perhaps you misunderstood his example. This will be caught by MLS as a charitable donation.

OK, the devil is in the details. I was creating a subcategory in Other, not a subcategory in Other: Temple (Specific) - a subcategory to a subcategory. Of course the program will credit any donations because it's reading the default subcategory. Man, I can be dense sometimes. Thanks for setting me straight.

For clarity purposes. I keep getting conflicting information about the church's charitable tax status as it specifically pertains to Canada. Does anyone know, for certain what it is? If a member gives money to Humanitarian aid and designates it specifically to go to Haitian relief, for instance, does this qualifyer prevent the member from recieving a tax reciept and does it actually go specifically to Haiti or is it used anywhere the church feels it is needed. Does anyone know the actual truth on this one? I have heard that the LDS church in Canada is in a sticky situation as it pertains to its charitable donation status for humanitarian aid. More specifically that any humanitarian aid donated within Canada must, by Canadian tax law, be "Country Specific" or in other words only used within Canada.

nasterblaster wrote:For clarity purposes. I keep getting conflicting information about the church's charitable tax status as it specifically pertains to Canada. Does anyone know, for certain what it is? If a member gives money to Humanitarian aid and designates it specifically to go to Haitian relief, for instance, does this qualifyer prevent the member from recieving a tax reciept and does it actually go specifically to Haiti or is it used anywhere the church feels it is needed. Does anyone know the actual truth on this one? I have heard that the LDS church in Canada is in a sticky situation as it pertains to its charitable donation status for humanitarian aid. More specifically that any humanitarian aid donated within Canada must, by Canadian tax law, be "Country Specific" or in other words only used within Canada.

I know nothing about Canadian tax law. As far as MLS donations are concerned, I know of no way to earmark Humanitarian Assistance funds for "Haiti" or any other such specific purpose.

I'm not sure how "Humanitarian Aid" is handled in Canada. You might look over the tax statements of members who did donate in 2009 and see if it was counted. The other alternative is to call local unit support.

Probably those living outside the US know this, but just for information to those in the US...

The church is not always recognized as a charitable organization for tax exempt donations outside the US. This, of course, applies for tithing or other donations such as humanitarian aid. It may even make a difference on US taxes if the donation is processed by the church outside the US.

When I lived in a foreign country, the English unit accepted both US dollar and local currency donations. The US dollar donations were processed by CHQ in the US and were of course tax deductible; however, the local currency donations were processed by the local administration office. Since the local church organization was considered separate from the US organization, and not recognized by the IRS as a charitable organization, the local currency donations could not legally be tax deductible.

I have a 'Other' subcategory called 'Humanitarian Aid' that was created before my time, and and I want to put this money in the JHumanitarian Aid category where it belongs. I cannot transfer the money out because this option is not given in the transfer window.

What is the best option?
Do I just write a check CHQ for the subcategory amount?

pze wrote:I have a 'Other' subcategory called 'Humanitarian Aid' that was created before my time, and and I want to put this money in the Humanitarian Aid category where it belongs. I cannot transfer the money out because this option is not given in the transfer window.

What is the best option?
Do I just write a check CHQ for the subcategory amount?

A simpler way is to write a check to the ward from that Other subcategory, and deposit it as part of a normal donation batch in the normal Humanitarian Aid category (the one that appears on the donation slip, not your similarly named Other subcategory).

The easiest way may be to do the check-to-self routine
out of the other category, but it is not what should be done.

One needs to get the details of the donations made using
the detailed income/expense report, and then go back into the
correct donation batches and change each of the slips that
donated to Other:Humanitarian Aid.

The reason is because "Other"-category donations are not
Tax-Deductible, whereas "Humanitarian Aid" donations are.

You'll also want to print out new Tax-valid Statements for the
donors affected.

Finally, to prevent donations to Other: Humanitarian Aid in the
future, you should Add/Update the Budget Categories, and clear
the "Active" checkbox for Other:Humanitarian Aid. This will keep
it from showing up when entering donations.

- Atticus

atticusewig wrote:"Other"-category donations are not Tax-Deductible, whereas "Humanitarian Aid" donations are.

Whether donations are tax deductible or not is not soley determined by the category donations are placed. The Church provides an end of year tax valid statement that does not include donations to the "Other" category because most subcategories of the “Other” category are not considered charitable contributions. This does not mean that all donations to an "Other" category subcategory are not charitable contributions. It is between the individual and the taxing authority to make that determination. The end-of-year tax valid statement provides the necessary documentation considered acceptable by taxing authorities that donations meet the necessary requirements. A donatoin not on the end-of-year tax valid statement does not mean a donation is not a charitable donation.

Of course the taxing authority can determine what is
deductible or not. But, the point is that Donations to
Other subcategories DO NOT APPEAR on the tax valid statement.

If anything, the tax-valid statement should be segmented to
include both types of donations, and let the TaxMan determine
what is deductible or not.

Regardless, proper bookkeeping is to match donations to the
proper donation categories. If Other:Humanitarian Aid isn't something
that should have gone towards Humanitarian Aid in the first
place, I would greatly surprised.

- Atticus