Hi Development world,
We’ve got a situation that occurs relatively frequently here, and I’m hoping that you might have some experience or advice.
How do you handle deducting taxable benefits from tax receipts, if a patron makes more than one gift in a year? We receipt immediately upon receiving a gift and run into complications if a person then gives an additional gift in the year if the second gift takes them to a new giving level.
For example, a patron gives a $500 gift, which makes them eligible for $50 in benefits. They get a tax receipt for $450. Later in the year, they give $250 which bumps them to the $750 level which has $60 in benefits. They then get a tax receipt for $240.
Is this how it works for other people? What happens if the additional benefit at the $750 level is tied to something that is time sensitive and has been missed? Do they then get the whole $250 receipt the second time?
Thanks,
Adrienne
Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony
Your example makes sense and is how we handle it at City Center.
However, unless the donor declines to take benefits, we always list our standard amount for non-tax-deductibility, so we would list the tax-deductibility of their gift at $240 in your example, even if the only benefit was something they missed and almost definitely won't take advantage of. Perhaps your example donor will want to come to that event next year, but maybe will have to drop back down to $500.
Not every member who's eligible takes advantage of every event, but our tax language always reflects the maximum of what they could use. If a donor ever asked us for revised tax language based on what they did use, we would honor that, but it isn't something we want to keep track of.
-- Mike