Contributions made for new hospital bed for sick church member

by Holly
(Colorado)

Forgive me if my question is 'a given' ... but in reading the posts I was prompted to something we recently did in our church for a congregant.

He is not a church employee but he is someone with a terminal illness that was in need of a new hospital bed for his home. The church put the word out and many different people gave to help raise money for us to buy him a new bed... and we did~ Yay!

My question is I am under the assumption that the money people gave for this would be tax-deductible donations... but some of the comments confused me in that they said if the money is going toward a specific individual it can not be tax-deductible.

Can anyone help clarify this for me? ...or point me to the best resources to research it further?

Thanks and God Bless~

2Comments

Church Control

VVickey

Tax deductible donations boils down to church control. If a church has a benevolence fund and the CHURCH decides to help someone like you mentioned, the donations they collect would be tax deductible for the donors.

Now if an individual gave a donation and stated they knew "Mary Smith" was hitting it rough and wanted you to give her that money...the donation would not be tax deductible and would not be included on their giving statement as that donor took away the church's control of that donation by specifying a individual they wanted it to go to.

contributions for hospital bed

AAnonymous

You can go to www.christianitytoday.com. You may find answers there. God bless! It's an excellent source for all things legal and pertaining to church issues as well as everything in between.