Hi,

We are having a run that has a $30.00 registration fee.  The runners get a t-shirt with their registration.  Is a registration fee tax deductible or can it be considered a donation.  Do we need to subtract the value of the t-shirt from the donation and receipt the difference?  I want to know how others handle these.

Thanks,

Chris Parrish, chrisp@coloradoaidsproject.org

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p1771.pdf 

Is the event a fund raiser for your organization that meets your mission statement? If it is you may be ok to not receipt it because it's not a single payment of $75 or more with goods and services based on what this irs publication says. However, if your organization has a habit of receipting every gift (under the $75 threshold for goods & services or under the $250 threshold for single contributions) I would make sure to receipt it correctly with any goods and services valued as a benefit received dollar wise and described as indicated by the irs.

Hi Chris,

You can just include wording similar to this -

In accordance with the 1993 Tax Act, we confirm that "insert your organization name here" did provide goods and/or services to you in consideration for your contribution.  Each entry incurs a benefit of $x.xx (T-shirt).  Thus, the amount that qualifies for a tax deduction is your total contribution less the $x.xx benefit (per entry).   

Hope that helps.

 Marsha