Green button or red button? A question to which customers of major brands have become accustomed, at the checkout, when the payment terminal asks them if they wish to round up the bill to the next euro for the benefit of a cause. And to which they answered “green” approximately… 35.4 million times in 2023, for a total amount of microdonations of 13.2 million euros.
As the deadline for tax returns approaches – it is this Thursday, May 23 in departments numbered 1 to 19 and for non-resident taxpayers in France, and May 30 or June 6 for others – Should these donations be brought to the attention of the tax administration to benefit from a tax reduction? From this year 2024, the answer is no.
Because, to be eligible for tax reductions for donations to associations or foundations, one of the conditions is to be able to present, in the event of an audit, a tax receipt. However, from now on, no receipt can be provided to you for donations made by rounding up at the checkout, explains Mathieu Jubré, deputy general director of microDON, the social utility company which manages this solution and which aims to facilitate solidarity commitment.
“This is linked to a change in our model for disbursing the money collected. Until now, donations passed through an endowment fund, authorized to issue tax receipts regardless of the association receiving the donation; from now on, the intermediary is a payment institution, which cannot be »explains Mr. Jubré, adding that there is no legal obligation, for a structure eligible for the tax reduction for donations, to provide a receipt.
It would certainly have been possible to leave this possibility of issuing a tax receipt to voluntary associations, but “not all of them are up for it, this would have made the system less readable”, he judges. In practice, he believes that few donors should feel shortchanged, as “the endowment fund had only received seven requests for receipts in 2022”.
Cash receipts
The process was indeed tedious: donors had to keep the receipts (or other documents showing the donations), and send a request before April 30 of the year following the donations, provided they had accumulated at less 5 euros for the same association.
On the other hand, payroll donations, another solution offered by microDON, always generate the issuance of a tax receipt and can therefore be indicated on your declaration in order to benefit from a reduction, if the beneficiary organization is eligible. “This receipt is made available on a platform to which employees have access”explains Mr. Jubré.
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