DEVELOPMENT AND UNIVERSITY RELATIONS
OFFICE OF INFORMATION & FINANCIAL SYSTEMS December 9, 1997
ALL AT UCSD SUBJECT: Receipt and Certification of Calendar Year-End Gifts
This is a reminder that special handling will be required of departmental personnel for all charitable gifts received during the final days of calendar year 1997. This is especially important for divisions that close down during the holidays and have substantial amounts of mail to process upon their return.
It is important that all gifts be delivered to the UCSD Gift Administration Office, Mail Code 0940, as soon after they are received as possible. Donors should be receipted and thanked for their gifts in a timely manner. For those departments that remain open during the holidays, we encourage daily transmittals to Gift Administration. Obviously, any gift received by Gift Administration by December 31, 1997 will be receipted as such.
For gifts made very close to, or at calendar year-end, which were not deposited or processed until January, the IRS requires that charities be able to produce concrete evidence that donors relinquished possession of their gifts on or before December 31. Otherwise, such gifts may not be receipted as a TAX-DEDUCTIBLE charitable contribution for that tax year.
This evidence may take one of two forms: 1) for hand-delivered gifts, a
written attestation from a department representative stating that he/she personally received the gift on or before December 31, 1997 but was not able to send it to Gift Administration until January; or 2) for gifts received through the U.S. Mail, the envelope bearing a postmark on or before December 31, 1997. The envelope bearing the postal cancellation date on or before December 31, 1997 must be retained with the gift and attached to the transmittal sent to the UCSD Gift Administration Office.
All calendar year-end gifts to be receipted with a December 1997 date must arrive in the UCSD Gift Administration Office no later than January 12, 1998. For gifts arriving in Gift Administration in January, if either the hand-delivered attestation statement or the postmarked envelope is not attached to the documentation as evidence of effective delivery as of December 31, 1997, the gift will be receipted as having been made in January.
Hospital personnel should follow the above guidelines, but forward gifts to the Development Office, UCSD Medical Center, 8982.
This is a matter of great importance and economic consequence to donors.
Thank you for your cooperation in processing these calendar year-end
gifts.
Marlene D. Shaver
Director