Skip to main content

Donating a Timeshare Vacation to a Pastor

By
Question:

A member of our congregation owns a timeshare at a resort. He would like to donate a two week stay at the timeshare to our pastor. This situation leads me to ask the following questions: 

1)    The donor is requesting a deductible contribution letter. Is it appropriate for us to give him one?
2)    Is this situation taxable to our pastor?

Answer:

1)    There is little difference between this situation and donating one’s services. Remember, there is no deduction for donating one’s services. Similar to donating one’s services, the tax benefit of what this donor is contemplating is limited to the following:
  • He does not have to report income that he does not receive since he will collect no rent from the pastor.
  • However, we believe it is appropriate to provide a letter thanking the member for making his timeshare available. The letter should not be prepared on church letterhead; instead, it should be prepared and sent from the pastor himself.
  • Further, this is not an action taken by the pastor’s employer (it is not a corporate action taken by the church). A reminder of what is meant by “corporate action” and how it affects the deductibility of donations may be read at the following three blog posts that were published in the past:
2)    This situation is not taxable to the pastor. The pastor provided no services to the congregation (his employer) for which he is receiving this favor.
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