Charitable Giving Question

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Just to emphasize, I know someone who made a donation to the school her kids went to. It was not deemed tax deductible, even though she could say that other money, the tuition, she paid was what paid for the services her children got at the school. There was no way to say her children were not benefiting from the donation to their general fund. Therefore, she could not could not deduct it.

When I was in college I worked for a tax exempt community organization that had recreational facilities. Some people would pay for their day's recreation and concessions by check and would want to make out the check in a way that hid that they were actually buying something for their family with the check. Some even would pay for birthday parties like this. The accountant who I worked with pointed out that most likely these people wanted to collect up their cancelled checks at the end of the year as evidence of "donations."

[SnoopyCool]

Uh, you're receiving an education from the school in return for the money?

Probably, since it isn't a public school

As I understand the OP, the donation goes above and beyond tuition, cost of equipment, books, etc. Is this Montessori school a non-profit school? Because an educational organization *can* be an IRS qualified charity, OP might be able to deduct the donation. If the school gives some sort of written communication to the OP for tax purposes (receipt), maybe he could deduct it?

[disneysteve]

an educational organization *can* be an IRS qualified charity, OP might be able to deduct the donation.

That is certainly true. I donate to my undergrad college every year and that is deductible even though it is a private college. I guess OP needs to call the school and find out if donations are tax deductible. We can debate it all day and it won't answer the question.