@yujoshb wrote:
Thank you guys for answering. Based on everything I've read,
1. For any cash donations above $250, a direct deposit is not substantial. I'll look to see if I can get a statement from the church
2. For any cash donations under $250, it seems like a bank record is enough. So does that mean that if I donate $249 twelve times a year respectively for each month per transaction, a direct deposit to the registered church's account is substantial for the tax deduction? Or is $250 referring to the total donated within a year?
The church (or any organization) that receives more than $75 is required to give you a statement acknowledging receipt of the money and stating whether you received any benefit (other than intangible benefits of membership) for the donation. This can be a single combined year-end statement. If your church does not issue statements as required by law, I would stop giving them money until they get their finances in order. (I say this as a former church treasurer. If they can't be bothered to do a simple year-end statement, there's no telling what other funny business they are up to.)
The reason for this is that, if you make a large gift, the IRS wants confirmation that it was a no-strings gift and not some other kind of payment. For example, if you paid $300 to attend a fundraising dinner for a charity, and the fair value of the dinner was $100, you could only claim $200 as the value of the donation.
The IRS does not require separate substantiation for gifts of $250 or less. For this rule, you consider each gift individually, you don't have to aggregate them.
See here for more.
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p526.pdf
However, I have a concern. Suppose you made 10 gifts of $250 each, instead of 8 gifts of $300, to stay under the "more than $250" rule. There are some times when the IRS can accuse you of wrongdoing when you follow the letter of one rule to avoid following a different rule. This is fairly rare, and I'm not saying that will happen here, but it would be better to simply make your gifts as convenient to you and get the statement from the church treasurer.
