First Cove Donations Guide

What is a Charitable Donation?
Michalis 'BIG Mike' Kotzakolios


Defined Tag: Charitable Donation.

A charitable donation is the primary source of funding for various charitable and non-profit entities. A charitable donation is a gift by an individual, corporate entity or organization to fund the charitable programs of non-profit foundations and charitable organizations. These donations are usually in the form of cash money but donations can also be in the form of motor vehicle, real estate, stocks, mutual funds, clothing and other similar assets.

Most charitable donations today are in the form of give and take. This is because donations can also become source of investments. There are forms of charitable donations such as the charitable remainder trust that provides an investment gift to the beneficiary of the donation owner. Aside from this, the IRS has outlined guidelines that grants tax deductions to individuals who issues charitable donations. The tax deductions significantly lower the taxable income reducing the tax bill.

To be able to claim the tax deduction for the charitable donation, a number of requirements should be followed. For the tax deductions to apply, you must actually have made a charitable donation, which should be made to an organization with a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. The IRS also require an itemized list of charitable donations that has met their recordkeeping requirements. These record-keeping requirements are especially necessary in donations of real estate properties. For donations of motor vehicles, a written acknowledgement from the non-profit foundation is necessary to be able to claim a tax deduction.

There are certain types of donations that are non-tax-deductible. These include donations given to individual persons, political parties, payments to professional associations, donations to labor unions or business associations, donations to for-profit schools and hospitals, and donations to a foreign government.

In summary, a charitable donation has evolved over the years to include investment options for the individual or corporate entity. Some notable organizations even adopted community service programs and made community service as an option for their employees. They have established a 1-day community service leave that employees can freely avail in the approval of their immediate head. This community service leave should be availed for attendance in a company-sponsored charitable program.

BIG Mike is a well known author, developer and Adsense expert as well as the owner of Niche Maniacs - a unique Adsense Marketing System designed to build long-term passive income streams from Adsense, Amazon, YPN, Chitika and other PPC services.