July 10, 2009 - 8:14pm
Wow...
United States Church? I don't know about Europe, but I am 100% positive that in the US at least, having the pastor accept donations on his personal PayPal account will make the IRS very, very twitchy. The pastor would need to pay taxes on the donations, at the very least, as income to him, even if he then donates the money to the church, plus the church could not give anyone tax credit for it other than the Pastor... it's messy, and questionable both ethically and legally...
If the church is not willing to tie their financial information in with some form of payment gateway, then online donations will not be possible.
Blessings,
Tony
July 11, 2009 - 6:20am
No idea on that bit..
No - we're in the UK, but no doubt something similar would apply in some sense. And as you point out, that would obviously be the concern, and something I'll have to ensure I keep in mind, as our ministers tend to assume I know these things and so go by whatever I tell them (dangerous eh!). At least I know how to not progress forward with it, and can advise them better when the time comes. But if we do want to do it, what are the best ways to consider e.g. Paypal or some other gateway? Thanks for that valuable info. Romayne
Not sure if any churches do this or even whether there's some reason that it shouldn't be done, but my minister had asked if there was a way we could take donations on the site. I told him we absolutely could, but the management of it might be the problem. He had a personal Paypal a/c and was willing to provide me his login name which was all I needed or so I thought, but of course, that made it very difficult for me to have any control over things in the way I'd prefer. The church doesn't want to risk having its bank details hooked into Paypal, so I'm unsure whether it's something we can move forward with.
Wondered if it was worth a discussion by you guys sometime?
Thanks as always, Romayne