Charitable donations are often made out of the goodness of people's hearts. Governments like to reward their citizens for their good deeds by making charitable donations claimable against the donor's income taxes. If you find the rising cost of keeping up your lifestyle difficult to meet, you may be interested in hearing more about how your charitable donations can help you reduce the amount of money you'll need to pay in taxes. This article should provide you with the basics on the topic of charitable tax receipts.
The principle behind making charitable donations tax deductible is that when you donate to a charity, you aren't getting anything for your money. You may be improving your reputation or giving yourself personal satisfaction by putting the proceeds of your company to work helping people, but that does not count as a good or service in the eyes of the government. In fact, it counts as setting yourself back, so the tax break is a way of offsetting the sacrifice which rewards and encourages people who donate.
To get your charitable tax receipt, ask for one when you are making your donation. Representatives who come collecting door to door should have receipt books on them and receipts should be automatically granted when you donate online. If the solicitor who asks you for a donation cannot or will not give you a receipt, this is an indicator that they are not really a representative of a registered charity and may in fact be attempting to defraud you.
In order to grant receipts that will allow their donors to claim their donations against their taxes, a charity must be registered with the government. Their charitable tax number should be listed on the receipt that they give you. You will need this number if you are ever audited. In the case of large donations made, if an auditor finds your receipts are not granted by a legitimate charity, you may be fined for fraud, even if you were deceived by a false charity. Always check for this number. You can verify it online against the list of registered charities.
If you are making a donation to a cause that is not registered, such as helping an organization run a charity dance for a member of the community with a disease, you will not receive a receipt and you will not be able to claim this donation against your taxes. In some cases you may not receive a receipt even from registered charities unless your donation exceeds a certain amount - usually ten dollars - so take this into consideration while donating. A special thank you to one of our financial supporters, Supersteaminc.ca.
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