Group donation to charitable organization?

See IRS pub 526. The rules were updated so there is no provision to deduct undocumented donations. Old days, you could keep contemporaneous records to track the $20 in the collection plate at church, the $10 dropped into the Salvation Army's bucket at Christmas time. No more. You need a receipt from the organization or canceled check. So, unless the collector gets the charity to produce a receipt listing the donors and amounts, I'd stay with the 'chintzy' reply and say 'no'.

Joe

It seems OK to me to do this, but for paperwork: the name on the receipt from the 501(c)(3) should list the names of the group members, there should be a statement from the group members stating who contributed how much, each person should keep a copy of the receipt and statement, and each person should keep a copy of their deposited check image if any.

It seems unlikely that a high school's student itemized deduction would be larger than their standard deduction (minimum $850), but with summer jobs, investment income from stocks given to them by rich parents, state taxes on these items, one needs to check to be sure.

I don't think you have to mess with a partnership return 1065. Not sure if it even applies here anyway. And if each person is donating a large sum, say more than $250, then they should donate seperately to avoid the IRS telling them that they had to file a form 1065.

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Read it again. This is happening at a HS reunion, they're not students any more.

If you are interested in a deduction, just write a check to the charitable organization (not the group collecting). The charity will send you a receipt.

I don't think the OP was talking about current students (reunion event), so the assumption is that the attendees are all graduates or alumni.

You are overthinking the "problem". What partnership?

Herb Smith wrote: ...

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Seems like the solution -- guess there's no real difference in sending a collection of checks as opposed to sending a single check as long as they're designated for the specific purpose...

I need to read more carefully.

Normally to split income or deductions among several people, a partnership return is required. So I imagine, technically speaking, a

1065 is required to split the charitable deduction. But it's so much work for so little money that I think each person can just report their contribution on their own tax return and have the proper documentation available in case the IRS asks. Of course, the best solution is to write individual checks and get individual receipts. But events like these may not be so well organized that there is a dedicated person there to give individual receipts, or perhaps everyone puts up $20 cash, and since they're there to socialize they don't want to waste time filling out forms and getting a receipt. I feel they ought to get the deduction they're entitled to. Maybe one person can do the paperwork and email them a receipt and statement of their individual $20 contributions. It seems fair.

In any case, it's possible that if your income is 60049 then a $20 itemized deduction would not change your tax at all, as the tax is the same for incomes from 60000 to 60050 (I forget the actual range numbers).