Kazim Qasim Charitable Contributions

With the change in the season and the return of fall, many people begin the act of making their homes less cluttered, and we will all begin to get donation requests in the mail.  As the weather cools, we tend to turn an eye towards end of year tax moves as well.  The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 brought about many changes in how businesses and individuals are going to operate starting for 2018 onward.  With the deviations to the itemized deductions that we are all so used to, rethinking your charitable giving is a must. Read More

MileIQ

The IRS Mileage Rate 2016 is important for anybody looking for a driving-related deduction. Use this rate to determine how much your write-off can be for business-related drives, as well as charity driving and moving/medical trips.

Read More

When we talk about tracking your miles, we generally talk about business drives. This could be for the mileage deduction or a mileage reimbursement. But, there are other drives that can provide some savings at tax time. Let’s go over deducting non-business driving for medical or charity purposes.

Read More

John Dundon

Last spring, I become a relatively involved with St. Peter’s Stewardship Committee out here in Greenwood Village, Colorado. With membership ranks and pledged donations struggling, my wife and I developed a plan to drill down into several aspects of charitable giving and report findings along the way.

Read More

Do you plan to donate your services to charity this summer? Will you travel as part of the service? If so, some travel expenses may help lower your taxes when you file your tax return next year. Here are several tax tips that you should know if you travel while giving your services to charity.

• Qualified Charities.  In order to deduct your costs, your volunteer work must be for a qualified charity. Most groups must apply to the IRS to become qualified. Churches and governments are qualified, and do not need to apply to the IRS. Ask the group about its IRS status before you donate. You can also use the Select Check tool on IRS.gov to check the group’s status. Read More

You may claim as an itemized deduction, any charitable contributions of money or property you made to qualified charitable organizations. Generally, you may deduct charitable contributions of up to 50% of your adjusted gross income, but 20% and 30% limitations may apply in some cases. You may deduct a charitable contribution made to, or for the use of, any organization that is qualified under the Internal Revenue Code.

Defining Charitable Organizations

A qualified charitable organization is a nonprofit organization that qualifies for tax-exempt status according to the U.S. Treasury. Qualified charitable organizations must be operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, literary or educational purposes, or for the prevention of cruelty to animals or children, or the development of amateur sports. Read More

What factors determine if your donation is tax deductible or not: For a charitable donation to be tax deductible, one has to keep in mind first and foremost that one has to itemize deductions on the tax return via Schedule A and,

• That the donation is to a qualified organization. A qualified organization is an organization to whom one can make tax deductible donations. Usually, this is an organization registered under Section 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(19).

• These organizations include non-profit groups that are religious, charitable, educational, scientific, or literary in purpose, or that work to prevent cruelty to animals or children. (For an exhaustive list refer Pub 526). Read More

I had a strange experience on my door step with a man selling magazine subscriptions for a Charitable Organization the other day. To confirm his legitimacy he even showed me a check a neighbor had written for $50 and advised my donation to his organization would be tax deductible!

Most of us, through out the year are approached by various charities either personally or on the telephone or through letters. The callers may want you to pledge an amount that instant.

Financial stress has hit hard all round, both charities & donors are strapped for funds. My policy when approached thus in most cases is to ask for more information about the Read More

TaxConnections Tax Blog - Charitible Organizations and taxes“O” is for organizations.  There are many kinds of organizations, but they can be handled in very different ways for tax purposes.  Charitable organizations are tax-exempt and contributions to those organizations are deductible for taxpayers.  How can you tell if an organization qualifies as tax exempt?  Everyone knows the United Way is a qualified charitable organization, but what about the Wayzata Orchestra Boosters?  Many booster clubs are set up as charitable organizations, but others are not.  It turns out the Wayzata Orchestra Boosters is a qualified public charity, meaning contributions to that organization are deductible.  So where can you look that up?

http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Exempt-Organizations-Select-Check

That link is the Internal Revenue Service site where you can search by name and state for a charitable organization.  Before you make any large charitable contributions, it might be worth checking them out to make sure they are legitimate charities.

It is especially important to check the tax-exempt status of political organizations.  Some are organized for the benefit of candidates and a contribution to those organizations is not tax-deductible.  Others may seem political but they are organized and run as a charitable organization on behalf of a specific issue instead of a specific candidate or party.  Some of those organizations could be receiving tax deductible contributions.  The best thing to do is go the IRS site and check them out.  Better safe than sorry when donating to organizations.

Taxes A to Z – still randomly meandering through tax topics, but at least for 26 posts in an alphabetical order.

In accordance with Circular 230 Disclosure