What to tell clients about Giving Tuesday

The Tuesday after Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving) has been deemed “Giving Tuesday,” a day promoting making donations to nonprofit organizations - monetary or otherwise.

If your clients are participating in Giving Tuesday, it’s important they know what sorts of records they need to keep in order to receive a deduction. The IRS has a tool that may help them make sure their donations are as beneficial as possible.

Tax Exempt Organization Search on IRS.gov is a tool that allows users to search for tax-exempt charities, which allows taxpayers to determine if their donations are tax-deductible charitable contributions.

Here are some things to know about the TEOS tool:

• It provides information about the organization’s federal tax status and filings.
• It’s mobile friendly.
• Donors can use it to confirm the organization is tax-expempt and eligible to receive tax-deductible charitable contributions.
• Users can find out if an organization had its tax-exempt status revoked.
• Organizations are listed under their legal name on file with the IRS.
• Search results are sortable by name, EIN, state and country.
• Users can download entire lists of organizations eligible to receive deductible contributions.

Taxpayers can also use the Can I Deduct my Charitable Contributions? tool.

If your client does make a monetary contribution, they will need a receipt from the organization. All other donations will need to have a fair market value assessment of items donated.