Deduct donations from taxes: A donation receipt is not always necessary

Created: 01/12/2022, 08:30

By: Dieter Tannert

Christmas time is always a time for donations.

But not all donations can be claimed against income tax.

Especially during the Christmas season you will find a large number of appeals for donations for a number of good causes.

Ultimately, the state benefits from the fact that many private or church sponsors are committed to issues and people, so it has to do less work itself.

For this reason, the state promotes appropriate purposes by allowing donations to be tax deductible.

However, he defines very precisely which purposes he wants to promote.

Donations should primarily be used in Germany

The purposes that the state wants to promote must primarily be achieved in Germany.

For purposes outside of Germany, the recipients of the donation must have previously submitted special proof to the tax office.

In the case of large donation recipients, such as Welthungerhilfe, one can assume that this has been provided.

In the case of smaller donation recipients with sponsorship purposes abroad, you should first have confirmation that this requirement has been met and that the donation can be claimed for tax purposes in Germany.

Not everything that appears good is also deductible

Even if a donation purpose is often worthy of funding from your own point of view, you should always check it again before making a donation.

This certainly does not apply to the large appeals for donations from the churches or well-known charitable organizations such as the Tafel or the child protection association, for which Thomas Gottschalk recently campaigned.

In the case of smaller donation recipients, however, you should always ask for the "exemption notice" with which the tax office allows the tax deductibility of donations.

This notification must not be older than five years.

Christmas time is donation time © McPHOTO/Imago

Donations are also possible without money

The most common form of donation is certainly monetary donations.

However, the provision of items or a service rendered can also be recognized as a donation.

When it comes to donations in kind, one can think first of high-quality used items such as old computers that are donated to non-profit organizations.

But food, which is urgently needed at the food banks, is also an example of such donations in kind.

Non-profit organizations can then accept and certify the current value of the items as a donation.

Within narrow limits, you can also contribute your own working hours for donations.

To do this, however, it is necessary for it to be agreed from the outset that one's own working hours will also be made available for payment, which must also be verifiable.

Pay particular attention to proof of donation

Since the tax deduction for donations means more than 1.8 billion euros in tax waivers for the state according to the federal government's last subsidy report, it also places particularly strict requirements on the proof of donations.

In general, he requires proof of the donations by means of a donation receipt with a fixed content, which is issued by the recipient of the donation to the donor, regardless of whether it is a monetary donation or a donation in kind.

In addition to the necessary information on who donates how much to whom, the following liability information is always included on the certificates:

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"Anyone who intentionally or through gross negligence creates an incorrect donation receipt or causes donations not to be used for the tax-privileged purposes specified in the donation receipt is liable for the lost tax (§ 10b Para. 4 EStG, § 9 Para. 3 KStG, § 9 No 5 GewStG)."

If a monetary donation does not amount to more than 300 euros, it is referred to as a so-called small-amount donation.

If such an amount is donated to a public corporation, such as a church, the receipt of the transfer is sufficient as proof of the donation for the tax office.

However, this is not enough if the recipient of the donation is, for example, a non-profit association or another organization, as Birgit Geißler from the Bavarian State Tax Office points out.

A receipt issued by the recipient of the donation must then be submitted with the transfer receipt, on which the tax-privileged purpose and information about the exemption notice of the recipient of the donation

are printed.

The donation receipt is therefore always the best way to provide tax proof of the donation, even if Tobias Gerauer from the Bavarian wage tax office (Lohi) points out that the tax offices sometimes refrain from presenting a donation receipt or a transfer slip for small donations to well-known organizations.