response 1 of 72:

Jul 10 05:12 UTC 1998

Request IRS Catalog No. 20054Q (or its most current incarnation). It
may be on the web. The title is "Charitable Contributions - Substantiation
and Disclosure Requirements". 

Written acknowledgements are only *required* for donations in excess of
$250. For that reason, I would opine that e-mail acknowledgements for
smaller donations would be fine, especially coupled with an offer to
provide a written acknowledgement. The acknowledgement should, in any
case, be sent as quickly as possible, if only to indicate appreciation
for the donation (and keep them coming.....). 

response 3 of 72:

Jul 10 13:09 UTC 1998

Re #1: I do send the e-mail acknowledgement as quickly as possible, for the
reason you state.  But it would save time and money if I could send out paper
receipts only at the end of the year.  (And people who make more than one
donation in the course of the year would only need to save one receipt.)

response 5 of 72:

Jul 10 15:33 UTC 1998

I would think that in most cases an "end of the tax year" reciept would be more
than adequate.  (Maybe even better, since you don't have as much time to lose
it before you file your taxes.)

I also think that a mention that paper reciepts are available for tax purposes
attached to the e-mail acknowledgement and perhaps another toward the end of
the last quarter should be enough.

My opinion, of course, and I know nothing about these things.

response 7 of 72:

Jul 13 04:40 UTC 1998

A question I've been wondering about, and have been meaning to research.
How do we handle auctions donations?

Suppose Dee donates an object and Bee buys it for 10 dollars. 
Presumably, we need to figure out the value of the object, say V
dollars, and Dee gets credit for a donation to Grex of V dollars, while
Bee gets credit for a donation to Grex of 10-V dollars.  That seems
obvious enough.

But how do we come up with the value V?

And what if V is greater than 10?  Should we always set the minimum bid
at V dollars to ensure this doesn't happen?  If we publicize the "value"
of an object, would that discourage people from bidding above that
value?

response 9 of 72:

Jul 13 19:08 UTC 1998

I searched around on the IRS site and found reference to the publication Rane
mentioned.  It's number has chenged and it's not on the web site, but I called
up and ordered it, so in theory I should get it in the next 2 weeks.

I also found (on the IRS site) what looks like a plain-English version of the
rules on receipts, and I downloaded that but haven't yet digested it.  At
a glance, it appears that waiting till the end of the year may be OK for a
"substantiation" receipt, which is the thing you use to claim a deduction on
your taxes.  However there is also the concept of a "disclosure notice", which
is something you send donors to tell them how much the thing they got in
return for their donation is worth, ala Rane's magazine example above.  The
disclosure notice must be sent out in a "timely" manner, which I think means
we couldn't wait until the end of the year.

I don't think we need to send out any disclosure notices, however, since we
don't normally send out stuff in response to donations (other than a copy of
the Grex handbook, which is small enough not to count).  This is the part I
want to make sure of, though, so I need to read the regs carefully.

I'm thinking that the Accounting Aid Society, which we used to belong to,
might be worth turning to for help.  Perhaps they could give us some
definitive answers.  We might have to rejoin them, which would cost $25 per 
year.  danr, do you have any thoughts on that suggestion?

response 11 of 72:

Jul 14 05:41 UTC 1998

We would need to *acknowledged* donations of goods, so that the donor has
a record that that Item had been donated. A 'form' acknowledgement with
a space for the identification of the item(s) would be fine, and it also
permits repeating the IRS rules briefly on valuing the donation (that Grex
can't and the donor is responsible for doing so).

response 13 of 72:

Jul 14 20:30 UTC 1998

Yes, no. The form states "Valuation of the donated property is the
responsibility of the donor."

response 15 of 72:

Jul 21 05:07 UTC 1998

back in resp:8 , Rane said that only the donor can claim the
(donor-determined) value of a donation to the Auction. That is true, but might
be misleading. If a bidder bids more than the fair market value of the item,
the excess can be considered a donation by the bidder. I believe we can provide
a fair market value in that case, but I don't think we are obligated to provide
a disclosure notice for auction items.

response 17 of 72:

Jul 22 12:26 UTC 1998

I'm trying to figure out if membership donations are fully deductable. 
People do receive something for their memberships - ability to initiate
telnet, ftp and irc sessions from their Grex accounts.  It is hard to
estimate the fair market value of that increment in service that members
get beyond what other users get.  Nobody sells it separately.  The
definition of "fair market value" is "what a willing buyer would pay a
willing seller."  I can't even begin to guess.

There is good chance that this can be treated as a membership package
benefit.  In the IRS publication "Updates on Disclosure and
Substantiation Rules" it talks about "safe harbors" for kinds of
benefits that can be treated as being of zero value:

    The fourth safe harbor involves membership package benefits.
  Charities, such as museums, libraries, zoos, and arboretums,
  typically use membership packages to build a following and base of
  support. The benefits of a typical membership package may include
  free parking, gift shop discounts, an admission discount, etc.
  Charitable organizations which offer basic membership packages at $75
  or less and include some or all of the following benefits can treat
  such membership benefits as having insubstantial value and, hence,
  need not value them. See Proposed Regs. 1.170A-13(f)(8)(i)(B) and
  1.6115-1(b). The membership benefits are:

   a) Any right or privilege, other than rights to seating at collegiate
      athletic events, the contributor can exercise frequently during
      the membership period. Examples of such rights and privileges
      include free or discounted admission to organizations' facilities
      or events, free or discounted parking, preferred access to goods
      or services, and discounts on purchases of goods or services; and

   b) Admission to events during the membership period open only to
      members if the cost per person for the event, excluding any
      allocable overhead, is within the limits for low cost articles.
      For 1996, the limit for low cost articles is $6.70. See Rev. Proc.
      95-53, 1995-52 I.R.B. 22.

Case (a) looks like it should cover memberships.  This would mean that
membership fees are deductable from the donor's taxes.