Tax/Fundraising questions

[nilesgirl]

If this gets moved, please let me know where. I have a question for anyone who knows about taxes and charitable fundraising. I am doing a fundraiser on my own for MDA (doing a 50/50 raffle) and was wondering how that works with taxes? What I mean is...let's say I sell all 2,000 tickets. The total pot is $2,000. Now let's say Jane Smith wins the raffle so she gets 1/2 the pot ($1,000) with the other half going to MDA. Do I have to do anything on my taxes to show that or is that just the responsiblity of the winner? Just curious so I can be prepared. Also, does anyone know if I have to get legal permission from someone to sell the raffle tickets or can I just do it?

[MRD]

Check your local and state laws. In Florida and the county I lived in, we could NOT sell raffle tickets unless we were a non-profit registered with the state. Otherwise its considered gambling which you can be arrested for. This was a PTO organization and we did have non-profit status. But we had to obtaiin a temporary license in our county to sell the tickets as well.

Even if you are doing it for MDA, and MDA is a non-profit, you, yourself are not and without the approval and notification of the MDA, you could get in trouble there as well.

So I'd check with the MDA and your local and state laws. I've found that state websites have a lot of this information, just type in fundraising laws in the search engine of your states web page.

And a call to your local government will usually answer any questions about obtaining a special license.

It's a shame that someone like you that wants to raise money, has to jump all these hurdles, but the laws are put in place to make sure that people are not profiting themselves. Sad but true.

Good luck