Maximizing the Church's religious tax exemption: Doing your part

[Hamilton Porter]

I run a bimonthly Come Follow Me study group where I bring treats. I keep the receipts to get a tax deduction.

I have the Costco app where the receipt is automatically uploaded within 24 hours of my visit.

The Walmart app also allows you to scan your receipt.

Edited April 9, 2023 by Hamilton Porter
Frequency edit

[Smiley McGee]

PSA (hopefully unnecessary): if there’s one thing to be learned from the poor technical acumen displayed in the marathon SEC threads it’s this: do not take financial (including tax-related) advice from this forum. OP may be taking a disallowable tax deduction. Consult a reputable tax advisor. 

[Rain]

Yes, important to talk to a tax advisor about this. 

I would think for it to be allowable then you would first need to be called by the church to run the group and generally if that is the case most church leaders would say they should turn receipts in to the church for reimbursement. 

[Rain]

Tech glitch repeat

Edited April 8, 2023 by Rain

[Rain]

Tech glitch repeat

Edited April 8, 2023 by Rain

[The Nehor]

8 hours ago, Hamilton Porter said:

I run a weekly Come Follow Me study group where I bring treats. I keep the receipts to get a tax deduction.

I have the Costco app where the receipt is automatically uploaded within 24 hours of my visit.

The Walmart app also allows you to scan your receipt.

I think better advice is don’t post about your shady tax shenanigans online.

[Hamilton Porter]

1 hour ago, Rain said:

Yes, important to talk to a tax advisor about this. 

I would think for it to be allowable then you would first need to be called by the church to run the group and generally if that is the case most church leaders would say they should turn receipts in to the church for reimbursement. 

No it would count as an in-kind donation.

[Rain]

14 minutes ago, Hamilton Porter said:

No it would count as an in-kind donation.

I'm not talking about what it would count as on your taxes.  I'm talking about what the leaders would have you do if it is part of your calling.

[InCognitus]

2 hours ago, Smiley McGee said:

PSA (hopefully unnecessary): if there’s one thing to be learned from the poor technical acumen displayed in the marathon SEC threads it’s this: do not take financial (including tax-related) advice from this forum. OP may be taking a disallowable tax deduction. Consult a reputable tax advisor. 

In other words, "Ask you Tax Accountant if taking advice from a random post on the internet is right for you". 

[The Nehor]

25 minutes ago, Hamilton Porter said:

No it would count as an in-kind donation.

If you were audited they might ask for the church’s written acknowledgement of the donation.

[Hamilton Porter]

8 minutes ago, Rain said:

I'm not talking about what it would count as on your taxes.  I'm talking about what the leaders would have you do if it is part of your calling.

It's not part of my calling. The point of a two-hour block is to do these things at home or with groups.

[The Nehor]

Just now, Hamilton Porter said:

It's not part of my calling. The point of a two-hour block is to do these things at home or with groups.

So it is an in-kind donation to the church in support of an event that the church is not in any way involved in? Oh boy.

[Hamilton Porter]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

So it is an in-kind donation to the church in support of an event that the church is not in any way involved in? Oh boy.

I do it on church premises. The church has explicitly encouraged these types of gatherings.

Edited April 8, 2023 by Hamilton Porter

[Smiley McGee]

2 hours ago, Hamilton Porter said:

No it would count as an in-kind donation.

LOL! You’re out of your depth here. 

[The Nehor]

20 minutes ago, Hamilton Porter said:

I do it on church premises. The church has explicitly encouraged these types of gatherings.

From what I know of tax law it wouldn’t matter unless the church is prepared to send you a letter accepting the in-kind donation. They would then expect the church to have a record of receiving the donation of what you bought. The church will not have it and the church probably won’t give you a letter acknowledging the donation if you are audited. I wouldn’t do this.

[InCognitus]

28 minutes ago, Hamilton Porter said:

I do it on church premises. The church has explicitly encouraged these types of gatherings.

The ward has a budget and will reimburse people for expenses used in church approved activities, to which you wouldn't have any tax application for the expense (because you were reimbursed).  But doing it on your own might possibly raise some questions from the IRS.  

I've been audited twice by the IRS, and both times the audit included my charitable contributions (the first time it happened in a year when I was supporting two missionaries at the field at the same time).  The second time also included my business expense (mileage to my client's offices because I'm a consultant and have no "commute" to a fixed office).  The only hard part for the charitable contribution portion of the audit is that they wanted proof of the contributions through canceled checks for everything (this was in 2006 and 2008, if I remember correctly, before we had the option of doing electronic payments).  It was a pain, but not because I was doing anything wrong (I actually got a refund the first time - I missed a child tax credit on my return), but because of the time and effort it took to give them what they requested.  So whatever you do, make sure you're keeping good records and you are doing it right.

[Hamilton Porter]

11 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

From what I know of tax law it wouldn’t matter unless the church is prepared to send you a letter accepting the in-kind donation. They would then expect the church to have a record of receiving the donation of what you bought. The church will not have it and the church probably won’t give you a letter acknowledging the donation if you are audited. I wouldn’t do this.

Nah I'm good. My mom is a hotshot tax accountant. She's Buddhist but she asked me for my gas bill when I gave people rides to church. When I told her I didn't keep track of that, she asked for my car registration fees.

I know other people who take tax deductions for gas when they do their home teaching.

[Rain]

9 minutes ago, Hamilton Porter said:

Nah I'm good. My mom is a hotshot tax accountant. She's Buddhist but she asked me for my gas bill when I gave people rides to church. When I told her I didn't keep track of that, she asked for my car registration fees.

I know other people who take tax deductions for gas when they do their home teaching.

Quote

Car expenses.

 

You can deduct as a charitable contribution any unreimbursed out-of-pocket expenses, such as the cost of gas and oil, directly related to the use of your car in giving services to a charitable organization. You can't deduct general repair and maintenance expenses, depreciation, registration fees, or the costs of tires or insurance.  https://www.irs.gov/publications/p526

 

[InCognitus]

25 minutes ago, Rain said:

Car expenses.

 

You can deduct as a charitable contribution any unreimbursed out-of-pocket expenses, such as the cost of gas and oil, directly related to the use of your car in giving services to a charitable organization. You can't deduct general repair and maintenance expenses, depreciation, registration fees, or the costs of tires or insurance.  https://www.irs.gov/publications/p526

And you can use the standard mileage rate instead of actual costs if you keep track of your miles carefully.  I have done this for scouting activities in situations where I didn't turn in receipts for gas.

And I know from personal experience with my business mileage audit that keeping detailed mileage records is important (I had very detailed records of my business and charitable miles, and none of it was ever questioned in the audit).  

[Rain]

Just now, InCognitus said:

And you can use the standard mileage rate instead of actual costs if you keep track of your miles carefully.  I have done this for scouting activities in situations where I didn't turn in receipts for gas.

And I know from personal experience with my business mileage audit that keeping detailed mileage records is important (I had very detailed records of my business and charitable miles, and none of it was ever questioned in the audit).  

I was going to ask you about that.  I am keeping a spreadsheet of my mileage for my volunteer stuff.  How do you keep track of it?  Notebook or app maybe?  I tried using an app of some kind, but that particular one was a struggle to use.

[InCognitus]

10 minutes ago, Rain said:

I was going to ask you about that.  I am keeping a spreadsheet of my mileage for my volunteer stuff.  How do you keep track of it?  Notebook or app maybe?  I tried using an app of some kind, but that particular one was a struggle to use.

I never liked the phone apps, but I had to start keeping mileage records since 1997 when I began working as a consultant, so I came at this with an old school approach.  I thought about using the phone apps, but it always seemed like an awkward way to record the information.  And, having a little mileage booklet (like the image shown below) tucked in the driver side door pocket of my car (with a pen clipped to it) was always way more convenient.  Of course you don't need anything that elaborate.  In recent years when I haven't been going to client offices nearly as often I've just used a small note pad.

The main advantage to phone apps is that you don't need to do a lot of work to add them up when tax time comes, and that was always the part that I dreaded about doing my taxes each year, because I transferred everything in my hand written mileage booklet to an Excel spreadsheet.  But the convenience of keeping the daily record always outweighed the pain of tallying the information once a year, because knowing the starting and ending mileage of every trip and what it was for was always way more important.  

[The Nehor]

2 hours ago, Hamilton Porter said:

Nah I'm good. My mom is a hotshot tax accountant. She's Buddhist but she asked me for my gas bill when I gave people rides to church. When I told her I didn't keep track of that, she asked for my car registration fees.

I know other people who take tax deductions for gas when they do their home teaching.

You’ll continue to be good until you are audited. Better hope that never happens.

[Hamilton Porter]

2 hours ago, Rain said:

 

Hmmm... must've been another reason she asked me for them.

https://ttlc.intuit.com/turbotax-support/en-us/help-article/tax-credits-deductions/car-registration-fee-deductible/L0NkGtxYR_US_en_US#:~:text=Yes%2C your car registration fee,based on your vehicle's value.

[Hamilton Porter]

2 hours ago, Rain said:

I was going to ask you about that.  I am keeping a spreadsheet of my mileage for my volunteer stuff.  How do you keep track of it? 

I take a picture of the screen after each trip.

 

 

[mfbukowski]

15 hours ago, Hamilton Porter said:

I run a bimonthly Come Follow Me study group where I bring treats. I keep the receipts to get a tax deduction.

I have the Costco app where the receipt is automatically uploaded within 24 hours of my visit.

The Walmart app also allows you to scan your receipt.

Nothing wrong here, it is totally legal.

Especially if you are a full tithe payer and running close to the line where it all gets to be too much- which today includes most middle class families.

If I was more organized, I would be all over this- one can also deduct mileage if you drive long distances for ministering or church meetings on a regular basis- like a bishop living 20 miles from the building for example.