IRS Withdraws Proposal For Donee Reporting By Charities Over Privacy Concerns

The Internal Revenue Service announced in the Jan. 8 Federal Register that it is withdrawing a controversial proposal that would have allowed charitable organizations to report individual donations to the IRS as an alternative to taxpayers obtaining a contemporaneous written acknowledgement of the contribution.  Many of the public comments on the proposal expressed privacy concerns since charitable organizations would have needed to collect and maintain social security numbers of donees.