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I work as a volunteer for a tax exempt organization in the US. We are currently accepting donations in bitcoin but not issuing receipts for those donations. I would like to start issuing receipts. Is there any legal guidance available online about this? I haven't been able to find anything.

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Using a Bitcoin payment processor like BitPay can make collecting donations as a charity much easier. BitPay will value the bitcoin at the time of the transaction, and charities can choose to take the payment as Bitcoin or have it converted to a number of other currencies and deposited directly in a bank account.

Of note, BitPay processes transactions for 501(c)(3) nonprofits entirely for free- no fees and 0% commission.

This may be the ideal solution for your situation, as it can also simplify legal complexities by allowing you to accept bitcoin donations as US Dollars. Then the procedure for bitcoin donations would be similar to your current procedure for USD donations.

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You can issue gift-in-kind receipts, the same sort you would issue for any other non-cash donation.

(e.g. Thank you for your generous gift of 7 Bitcoins which we received on _(Date)_. Your generous contribution will help to further the important work of our organization.)

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  • It would be nice also to have the value of the donation in fiat shown, too. "7 bitcoin received on $date, valued at $100 per bitcoin for a total donation valued at $700."
    – Colin Dean
    Aug 14, 2013 at 4:15
  • Which value in fiat should be used? (a) the time the donation was received? (b) the time the receipt was written? (c) the time the BTC was exchanged? (d) something else... ?
    – RentFree
    Aug 15, 2013 at 11:57
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To help make it possible for your donor to prove that the funds were indeed sent to your organization, a new feature known as the Bitcoin payment protocol, planned for release in version v0.9, will help with that.

The payment request can include information that alone could likely serve as the receipt for the donor.

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