Skip to main content

Church Contribution to Foreign Church Not Recognized as a 501(c)(3)

By
Question:

A church would like to send funds to a foreign church. This foreign church is not an Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3) organization; it is simply a small ministry in need of help. Is there a problem if the church donates to this foreign church?

Answer:

According to IRS Publication 526, deductible contributions may only be made to “qualified organizations.” The only foreign charities that are cited in the publication as permissible are charities in Canada, Mexico, and Israel. Often, U.S. missionaries in foreign countries will use some of their support to aid local ministries that they are associated with. These type of transfers from a US church through a U.S. missionary are not a problem.

Of course, since local churches in the United States are exempt from income taxes, they are not concerned about getting charitable deductions for their contributions directly to foreign religious organizations. However, a church is serving as an agent for its contributors. Care should be taken that a local church is not facilitating contributions which would otherwise be impermissible for its individual members. Obviously, some U.S. charities have made grave mistakes in this area (e.g. unwittingly supporting foreign organizations with purposes very incompatible with their own).
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Church Car Purchase for Pastor

By
Question: A church would like to purchase a car for the pastor's use. What is the best method to accomplish this goal? Should the car be titled in the pastor's name? What will be the tax consequences of this arrangement? Answer: The church has two main alternatives for this purchase:  Title the car in the pastor's name and reimburse him for business expenses Title it in the church's name and treat personal use as taxable compensation There are fewer immediate tax consequences for the latter. Since both are viable options, we will discuss both situations in this post. If the church chooses to give the car to the pastor and register it in his name, he is free to use it for whatever personal use he desires with no tax consequences. However, the fair value of the car is taxable as compensation at the time it is given to the pastor. Internal Revenue Code section 102(c) clearly states that gifts given to employees by their employers are taxable compensation. The...
2 comments
Read more

Rental of a Church Parsonage to a Non-Minister

By
Question: A church owns a parsonage, but the pastor does not use it as he owns his own home. The church rents the parsonage to a tenant other than a minister or employee of the church. Will the church be responsible for paying income tax on these monies as Unrelated Business Income (filing a Form 990-T) even if the money is used to carry on the business of the church? Answer: Whether the money is used for church purposes is irrelevant.  IRS Publication 598  states: "If an exempt organization regularly carries on a trade or business not substantially related to its exempt purpose, except that it provides funds to carry out that purpose, the organization is subject to tax on its income from that unrelated trade or business." Fortunately, in the case of rental income from real property, such income is "excluded in computing unrelated business taxable income" (Publication 598). Caution: see content below regarding debt-financed property.  However, a second concern not a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Debits and Credits for Designated Gifts

By
Question: A church is setting up QuickBooks for its accounting, but its personnel have little experience with fund accounting. What are the entries for the receipt and disbursement of designated gifts and the opening balances? Answer: We recommend that most churches that do not need to present financial statements in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) observe the following steps. Even those churches that do report using GAAP can employ these methods but must make some adjustments when preparing their financial statements. What we will demonstrate relates to what most churches call "designated gifts" (CPAs call these  Temporarily Restricted  gifts). These are gifts that donors contribute with the intention that the church will spend the funds as they direct. Most churches do not receive "endowment gifts" in which donors prohibit the expenditure of the core gift (CPAs call these  Permanently Restricted  gifts). Only earnings on the subsequ...
12 comments
Read more