Recording Gift Cards from a Supermarket's customers

Lisa Slawinski · April 2018

Hi Community,

I didn't see a thread started regarding my question, so if it's out there somewhere, please forward.

Here's our scenario: A local Supermarket ran a Bag Hunger Campaign in which its customers made monetary donations. The supermarket then turned the monetary donations into gift cards and sent them to us.

Please let me know if you agree with my thinking: the Supermarket will be thanked for it's support but without any tax language as they were simply the conduit of the donation, not the physical donor. I'm thinking this is a good community partner but nothing more at this point.

Any and all thoughts welcomed.

JoAnn Strommen · April 2018

Lisa,

I'd be leaning the other way: receipting supermarket for GIK (tax statement to check with your tax advisor regarding tax implications - they definitely have self-serving interest in donation) and letter thanking customers for support (no tax statement).

There are a lot of factors in play. Do you have an agreement with the store - are they in some way acting as your legal agent collecting the money? Did customers know where funds they donated were going specifically? Did the supermarket have control of the funds and where they went? I'm guessing you're some kind of community / food provider organization.

As this is much broader than a RE question I would ask your tax advisor and/or read similar posts/post your question at fundsvcs.org. It's harder to get to their archives with their update but there have been similar posts in the past.

Just my 2 cents....

Lisa Slawinski · April 2018

Thanks JoAnn,

To answer your questions: I don't consider it a GIK since we received the physical gift cards (which was stipulated in the form letter included with the gift cards that the cards are to be used for food only). I should clarify that the gift cards are the supermarket's gift cards, not Amazon, ITunes, etc. We are a Food Bank. The form letter only indicated their Bag Hunger Campaign name and that their customers donated to the campaign. It does not mention in the letter that the customers were told we would be the recipient of the donations.

We do not have an agreement with the store as this was a random donation that (as far as I know), we were not informed of the incoming donation.

Thanks for your insight.

Lisa

JoAnn Strommen · April 2018

Hope it was helpful. For us, gift cards are GIK. If we can't deposit it in the bank, it's GIK.

Recording Gift Cards from a Supermarket's customers

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