What must a charitable donation receipt or written acknowledgment contain to satisfy IRS substantiation requirements?

Who issues the acknowledgment, and who carries the risk if it is missing?

The acknowledgment is the recipient organization's document. IRS Publication 1771 says a donor cannot claim a federal income tax deduction for any single contribution valued at $250 or more unless the donor obtains a contemporaneous written acknowledgment from the donee charitable organization. A bank or card statement is not a statement from the organization and says nothing about what the donor received, so it cannot take the acknowledgment's place.

Publication 1771 makes obtaining the acknowledgment the donor's responsibility, says the organization must assist by providing a written statement with the required contents, and says an organization that does not acknowledge a contribution incurs no penalty. Its rules exclude a donated motor vehicle, boat or airplane claimed at more than $500: for those, the Instructions for Form 1098-C say section 6720 penalizes an organization required to furnish the acknowledgment if it knowingly furnishes a false or fraudulent one or knowingly fails to furnish one in the manner, at the time and showing the information required. Otherwise, the cost of a missing letter falls on the donor.

What must every acknowledgment contain?

Publication 1771 sets the first six elements below; each later row comes from the document named. Every row except the date, which is recommended, is required in the case shown. Issuers can use the table as a template, donors as a test.

Include the date even though Publication 1771's six elements omit it. IRS Tax Topic 506 says one document from the organization may satisfy both the written-communication requirement for money gifts, which calls for the date, and the acknowledgment requirement. Publication 526 says that if the acknowledgment does not show the date, the donor must also have a bank record or receipt that does.

Publication 1771 says the donor's Social Security or taxpayer identification number is not needed, and allows one acknowledgment, such as an annual summary, to cover several contributions of $250 or more. It accepts letters, postcards and computer-generated forms, on paper or provided electronically, such as by an email addressed to the donor. An emailed letter or PDF carrying every element counts as paper does.

What must the goods-or-services statement say?

A thank-you letter that names the amount but says nothing about what the donor received is missing a required element. When nothing was given, Publication 1771's samples say: "No goods or services were provided in exchange for your contribution." When something was, the letter describes and values it: "we gave you a cookbook with an estimated fair market value of $60."

Publication 1771 lets the organization leave out three kinds of benefit:

• Token benefits. Goods or services of insubstantial value need not be described, but only when the payment is made in a fundraising campaign, the organization tells the donor how much of the payment is deductible, and either the benefit's fair market value is no more than the lesser of 2 percent of the payment or the year's dollar cap, or the payment is at least the year's minimum and the only items given bear the organization's name or logo and cost in total no more than the year's low-cost-article limit.

  Publication 1771 prints these amounts for 2023 and says they are adjusted for inflation; use the IRS.gov figures for the year of the gift. In its logo-mug example, the organization may state that no goods or services were provided.

• Membership benefits. An annual membership benefit is insubstantial if given for an annual payment of $75 or less and made up of annual recurring rights or privileges, such as free or discounted admission, gift-shop discounts, parking, or member-only events whose per-person cost is within the low-cost-article limits.
• Intangible religious benefits. A religious organization providing only these need not describe or value them; it can simply state that it provided them.

What separate disclosure does the organization owe when a payment buys something?

Publication 1771 requires the organization to give a written disclosure statement to a donor who makes a payment exceeding $75 partly as a contribution and partly for goods and services. The duty reaches payments well below $250: in the publication's example, $100 paid for a concert ticket worth $40 needs the statement. The statement must do both of the following:

• Tell the donor that the deductible amount is limited to the excess of money (and the fair market value of property other than money) contributed over the value of the goods or services provided.
• Give a good-faith estimate of the fair market value of those goods or services.

It must be furnished with either the solicitation or the receipt of the payment, in writing, in a manner likely to come to the donor's attention; small print within a larger document might not meet that test. It is not required when the benefit meets the token, membership or intangible-religious-benefits exception, or when there is no donative element, as in a typical museum gift shop sale. The penalty is $10 per contribution, up to $5,000 per fundraising event or mailing, unless the organization shows reasonable cause.

Which value band is the gift in, and are separate gifts added together?

These are the charitable-contribution rules; receipt thresholds used for business expenses are a separate regime and do not carry over.

For the $250 line, gifts are not added together: Publication 1771 says separate contributions of less than $250 will not be aggregated, as with weekly church offerings that total $250 or more over the year, and treats each payroll deduction of $250 or more as a separate contribution. Each smaller gift still needs the money record above.

Property is counted differently. Publication 526 says that in deciding whether a deduction is $500 or more, the donor combines claimed deductions for all similar items of property donated to any qualified organization during the year. For the $5,000 test, the Instructions for Form 8283 count every item in a group even if the items went to more than one organization, and require a separate Section B for each organization; similar items are those of the same general category or type, such as paintings, books, clothing or jewelry.

By when must the acknowledgment be in hand, and why can't a late one repair it?

Publication 1771 says the donor must receive the acknowledgment on or before the earlier of the date the donor files the individual federal income tax return for the year of the contribution or that return's due date, including extensions. The Treasury regulation, 26 CFR 1.170A-13(f)(3), states the test for "the taxpayer", which carries it to business donors, and measures both dates by the taxpayer's original return for the year. When a partnership or S corporation gives $250 or more, the regulation treats the entity as the taxpayer: it must hold the acknowledgment before reporting the contribution on its return, and a partner or shareholder needs no additional substantiation for their share.

For every contribution except a qualified vehicle claimed at more than $500, two consequences follow. Filing early moves the deadline forward: a donor who files on March 3 and receives the letter on March 10 is too late, although the due date has not arrived. And because both dates are fixed by the original return, a letter obtained afterwards, for an amended return or when the deduction is questioned, does not meet the test; without a contemporaneous acknowledgment, Publication 1771 says, the donor cannot claim the deduction.

Publication 1771 notes that charities typically send acknowledgments no later than January 31 of the year after the donation. A donor who has none by then, or finds an element missing, should ask the organization for a complete letter before filing; a corrected letter counts only if it arrives by the earlier of the two dates.

A qualified vehicle claimed at more than $500 follows its own rule: the Instructions for Form 8283 count its acknowledgment as contemporaneous if the organization furnishes it within 30 days of the sale or contribution, and Publication 526 says a donor still without Form 1098-C as the filing deadline approaches can request an automatic 6-month extension, or file on time without the vehicle deduction and amend with Form 1040-X once it arrives.

What changes when the gift is property?

The organization describes the property and leaves its value to the donor. Publication 1771 calls for a description but not the fair market value of donated property. For a donor testing a letter, the element is the description: Publication 526 phrases it as a description "but not necessarily the value". Neither Publication 1771 nor Publication 526 says whether a value stated by the organization affects an otherwise complete acknowledgment; a donor who wants certainty can ask the organization, before the deadline, for a letter that describes the property without a value.

Above $500 the letter is not enough. The Instructions for Form 8283 set these triggers, measured by the deduction claimed for an item or group of similar items:

Art of $20,000 or more, conservation contributions, historic-building easements and carryover years carry further attachment rules in the Instructions for Form 8283.

The appraisal has its own timing. The Instructions for Form 8283 say the donor must get it before completing Part I of Section B; it must be signed and dated by a qualified appraiser not earlier than 60 days before the date of the contribution; and the donor must receive it before the due date (including extensions) of the return on which the deduction is first claimed, or, for a deduction first claimed on an amended return, before that return is filed. Outside the attachment cases above, the donor keeps it rather than attaching it.

At the over-$5,000 level the organization does two separate things. It issues the written acknowledgment described above, which its Form 8283 signature does not replace: the Instructions for Form 8283 tell the donor, when asking the organization to fill out Part V, to also ask for the contemporaneous written acknowledgment. And it completes and signs the Donee Acknowledgment in Part V, through an official authorized to sign its tax returns or a person specifically designated to sign Form 8283, then returns the form to the donor; for a partnership's or S corporation's gift it completes Part V for the entity only. Obtaining the appraisal and filing Form 8283 remain the donor's tasks.

Which contribution types carry their own acknowledgment rules?

Beyond gifts that bought the donor something, four common types need more than the general template.

What does a vehicle, boat or airplane donation need?

The Instructions for Form 8283 define a qualified vehicle as any motor vehicle manufactured primarily for use on public streets, roads and highways, a boat or an airplane, and exclude property the donor holds primarily for sale to customers, such as a car dealer's inventory. For each qualified vehicle claimed at more than $500, the Instructions for Form 1098-C require the organization to file Form 1098-C and to furnish the donor a contemporaneous written acknowledgment containing the same information shown on that form; Copy B may be used for this purpose.

The Instructions for Form 8283 treat that acknowledgment as contemporaneous only if the organization furnishes it no later than 30 days after the date that applies:

• The date of the sale, if the organization sold the vehicle in an arm's length transaction to an unrelated party.
• The date of the contribution, if the organization will not sell the vehicle before completing a material improvement or significant intervening use, or will give or sell it to a needy individual for a price significantly below fair market value to directly further its charitable purpose of relieving the poor and distressed or underprivileged who need a means of transportation.

If Form 1098-C has not arrived as the filing deadline approaches, Publication 526 gives two choices: request an automatic 6-month extension, or file on time without the vehicle deduction and amend with Form 1040-X once it arrives.

For a vehicle worth at least $250 but not more than $500, Publication 526 requires a written statement from the organization meeting the ordinary acknowledgment tests.

What does a payroll-deduction gift need?

Publication 1771 lets the donor use a pledge card prepared by or at the direction of the organization, together with a pay stub, Form W-2 or other employer-furnished document showing the amount withheld and paid to the organization. For a single deduction of $250 or more, the pledge card or other organization document must also state that the organization provided no goods or services for payroll contributions, if that was the case. The donor must have these documents by the same earlier-of-two-dates deadline, and Publication 526 adds that if none of them shows the date of the contribution, the donor needs another document that does.

What do unreimbursed volunteer expenses need?

For a single contribution of $250 or more in unreimbursed expenses, Publication 1771 requires an acknowledgment describing the services the donor provided, stating whether the organization provided goods or services in return, describing and estimating any it did provide, and carrying the intangible-religious-benefits statement where that applies. The letter does not prove the spending: Publication 526 says the donor must also have adequate records to prove the amount of the expenses.

What does a gift to a donor-advised fund need?

Publication 526 says a donor cannot deduct a contribution to a donor-advised fund without a contemporaneous written acknowledgment from the sponsoring organization that it has exclusive legal control over the assets contributed; it also bars the deduction where the fund's sponsor is a war veterans' organization, a fraternal society or a nonprofit cemetery company; it notes other circumstances that bar the deduction and points to Internal Revenue Code section 170(f)(18) for details.

How does a donor confirm the organization can issue an acknowledgment that counts?

Publication 526 says contributions are deductible only if made to a qualified organization, so a flawless letter from one that does not qualify carries nothing. It gives two ways to check: ask the organization, since most can tell you, or search the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search tool at IRS.gov/TEOS. The organization's own answer is not an independent check, so use the tool first, before relying on the letter. The IRS describes the tool's Publication 78 data as the list of organizations eligible to receive tax-deductible charitable contributions and says only the business name registered with the IRS is in the listing, so search under the legal name.

Not finding an organization there does not by itself show that it fails to qualify. Publication 526 lists churches, and federal, state and local governments receiving gifts solely for public purposes, among qualified organizations, and it does not say every such body appears in the tool. For one that does not appear, the remaining route Publication 526 gives is to ask the organization.

Who issues the acknowledgment when a platform or employer collected the gift?

With payroll giving, the employer supplies the pay stub or Form W-2 and the organization supplies the pledge card, as described above.

Publication 526 counts a payment through an online payment service as a cash contribution, but neither it nor Publication 1771 addresses fundraising platforms, or whether a platform's own confirmation counts as a record or as the acknowledgment. The regulation, 26 CFR 1.170A-13(f)(12), treats a section 170(c) organization that receives a payment as a contribution as the donee organization for the acknowledgment rule even if it passes the money on to other such organizations, unless an organization the money is passed on to provides goods or services in a transaction structured to avoid counting them. It says nothing of a platform that is not itself such an organization.

For every platform gift, whatever its size, keep a bank or card record showing the charity's name, the date and the amount; if the statement shows only the platform's name, get a written communication from the charity itself showing those three items, by the deadline in the money row above. For a single gift of $250 or more, identify which organization received it, check that organization in the IRS tool, and obtain from it an acknowledgment with the required contents before the deadline. If the gift went into a donor-advised fund, whatever its size, Publication 526 also requires the sponsoring organization's contemporaneous written acknowledgment that it has exclusive legal control over the assets contributed.

What should the donor keep, and what does the letter not prove?

Publication 1771 says the donor should not attach the acknowledgment to the return but must retain it to substantiate the contribution; the exception is a qualified vehicle claimed at more than $500, whose acknowledgment the Instructions for Form 8283 say to attach to Form 8283. In the appraisal-attachment cases in the property table, it is the appraisal that goes with the return. Beside the acknowledgment the donor keeps the dated money record where the letter lacks a date, the payroll documents, Form 8283 with the organization's Part V signature, any qualified appraisal, and records proving volunteer spending. The acknowledgment does not establish the property's value, the organization's status or how much of the gift is deductible; the deduction rules and limits are a separate question.