This quiz will test a person's knowledge on recording various types of donations.

Please review the IRS instructions for the IRS Form 1098-C to see who must file.

This question falls under a quid pro quo donation. These are found in the IRS code section 6115.

According to IRS publication 1771 page 4, under the Recordkeeping Rules, subsection 'Requirement', the date and amount are both needed. While the IRS publication 1771 says the donor is responsible for this information, the church should have it on the donor statement so they can match it their records such as a bank record like a cancelled check or bank statement.

According to the IRS instructions for the 1098-C, the donor must figure out the amount for the donated item (ie car, plane, and boat). This is atypical because most gifts in kind (GIK) can be donated without knowing the value. Most GIK's don't require a 30 day reporting period.

The IRS Form 1098-C is what you use to for a qualified vehicle over 500.00.

According to IRS publication 526, page 21, the non cash donation under 5,000.00 can be figured out by the tax advisor (CPA) or the donor themselves. Once the donation is over 5,000.00 a paid professional appraiser must be used and their written appraisal must be included with the donor's tax return.

As stated in the IRS publication 1771, the church must send a written acknowledgement (donor statement) to the donor for any one time contribution over $250.00.

A volunteer can't deduct their time and services. However an attorney can ask for a GIK donation statement for things like travel expenses for the attorney to come and meet with your organization. Or say for all the cost of mailings to your organization. In other words the expenses have to be documented and not just a 'service' or 'time'. There are a lot of rules on this that the churches should review before giving out any donation statements to any volunteers.

In person and private mail carriers must have the donation physically delivered to the charity (the church) by December 31st. This is different than the USPS which the IRS is fine with using the postmarked date.