How taxpayers can make sure their donations are tax deductible

Published November 26, 2019

It’s that time of year when taxpayers are thinking about how they want to give back, and many taxpayers will want to donate to a charity that means something to them. The IRS has a tool that may help them make sure their donations are as beneficial as possible.

Tax Exempt Organization Search on IRS.gov is a tool that allows users to search for tax-exempt charities. Taxpayers can use this tool to determine if donations they make to an organization are tax-deductible charitable contributions.

Here are some things to know about the TEOS tool:

It provides information about an organization’s federal tax status and filings.
It’s mobile device friendly.
Donors can use it to confirm that an organization is tax-exempt and eligible to receive tax-deductible charitable contributions.
Users can find out if an organization had its tax-exempt status revoked.
Organizations are listed under the legal name or a “doing business as” name on file with the IRS.
The search results are sortable by name, Employee Identification Number, state, and country.
Users may also download entire lists of organizations eligible to receive deductible contributions, auto-revoked organizations and e-Postcard filers.

Taxpayers can also use the Interactive Tax Assistant, Can I Deduct my Charitable Contributions? to help determine if a charitable contribution is deductible.