Gifts and Contributions

ExpressTaxExempt | December 3, 2015 | #givingtuesday, charitable contributions, charity, Christmas, contributions, December, expresstaxexempt, form990, fundraising, gifts, holidays, IRS, nonprofit, nonprofits, Public Support Test, tax, TaxReturn | No Comments

Isn’t the holiday season the most special time of year? The streets and houses are adorned with festive decorations, holiday music plays through the radio, or through your streaming music service, and the television airs the annual list of holiday specials. While it may be a couple more weeks before we are all back around family and friends, these things are our first glimpse of the holiday season, and as the song pronounces, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.”

One of the most common trends of this time of year is giving donations, and with the #GivingTuesday kickoff earlier this week, the act of giving is now in full effect. For those of you operating nonprofits and charities, it has to be an exciting time with all the contributions you’re receiving. In most cases, you’ll have to report those contributions when you file a tax return for your exempt organization.

With ExpressTaxExempt, reporting your contributions is as simple as waking up on Christmas morning.

After you’ve completed entering your organization details, prior year information, and your organization’s program service, you can begin to enter your contributions and gifts from the “Statement of Revenue” page.

1. Click the “Start” link for “Contributions, Gifts, Grants.”

2. Click “Start” if you need to list “Contributions from Fundraising Events” or “Contributions, Gifts, Grants, and Similar Amounts Received.”

Let’s say your organization has a holiday fundraiser, and it received contributions and donations from that fundraiser. Here, you can…

3. Enter the required income and contribution amount, and any expenses, from the fundraising event, then click the “Add” link.

If you didn’t host a fundraising event, and your organization accepted contributions as they were given, you can…

4. Click “Yes” for “Did you receive any contributions, gifts, grants and similar amounts received?”

5. Enter the required contribution details and click “Add Another” to list another contribution, or click “Add” to list only what you’ve just entered. That’s all there is to it.

“Do I have to list every individual contribution? I don’t have to with the paper form.”
We hear this quite often, and we understand that entering every single contribution can be tedious. While you might not have to do that with the paper form, please keep in mind that, with e-filing, you’re using sophisticated software with automated calculations and algorithms. The program even states the contribution will be factored into your public support percentage.

So if you tell a program that your organization receives at least 33% of its support from contributions, memberships fees, etc., then the program is going to automatically attempt to factor 33% from your list of contributions. If you list them as one large donation, that’s going to prompt an improper calculation, which will fail your public support test.

Bulk Upload

To compensate for having to sit within the program, and list contributions one by one, we do offer a bulk upload feature, which can list all your contributions at once.

All you need to do is

Step 1 – Download our pre-set Excel template.
Step 2 – Enter your contributions within the template and save.
Step 3 – Upload your saved template from your computer.

In this merry time of year, as well as anytime of year, our jolly support team in Rock Hill, South Carolina is more than happy to answer any questions, or help with any assistance you may need with e-filing your tax return. Give us a call at (704) 839-2321 Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. EST. Email us anytime, 24/7 at [email protected], or live chat with us at www.expresstaxexempt.com.

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