Year End Gift Information

The IRS has stated that a charitable gift made by check is complete at the time the check is delivered or mailed, and the postmark is evidence of the gift date.

Gifts delivered by overnight courier, e.g., Federal Express, UPS, etc., are deemed to have been made when they are delivered.

A gift by credit card is deemed to be made on the day the card is charged against the donor’s account (IRS Rev. Rul. 78-38).

On-line gifts get charged immediately and you will promptly receive a confirmation email informing you that the transaction was submitted successfully. If the transaction is completed before midnight on December 31, you may consider this successful online transaction as a 2008 tax-year donation.

Gift Administration will be open on Wednesday, December 31, from 9 am until 3 pm to accommodate credit card donations received by fax at 510-643-7675 or taken over the phone at 510-643-9789.

We will do our best to complete these gifts before year-end to ensure your tax deduction for 2008. Donors will not be able to fax, phone, or email credit card gifts after 3 pm on December 31.

Gifts by wire transfer are deemed to be made when the wire is credited to the recipient's bank. This document (.pdf) for Wire Transfer Gifts has instructions your bank should follow when sending the gift.

Please ensure that gifts by wire transfer are made before 1 pm Pacific Standard Time on Tuesday, December 30.

If you would like to confirm the University’s receipt of your wire transfer, please contact the Gift Administration Help Desk at 510-643-9789 or at gahelp@berkeley.edu and a staff member will confirm whether your wire transfer was received.

Gifts of securities are credited on the day they are received at University Relations. If they are sent through US mail with a stock power in a separate envelope, the last date that the stock certificate or stock power is postmarked is the date of gift. Stock gifts transferred to a brokerage house are credited the day received in the UC Berkeley Foundation or the UC Regents account. As transfers of securities often take several days to accomplish, please begin the transfer as early as possible before the end of the year in order to insure deductibility for the 2008-tax year.

Please contact Sylvia Worthington at 510-642-4123 or Delores Spence at 510-643-2322 for assistance with these gifts. They can also be reached by email at sworthington@berkeley.edu and daspence@berkeley.edu, respectively. Some donations are never identified because donors fail to contact us to let us know what they gave. So it is important that you contact Sylvia or Delores with the details of the gift including what stock and how many shares were given.

The tax-free direct qualified contributions from IRAs must be post-marked no later than December 31 to qualify for exclusion from the donor’s adjusted gross income in tax year 2008. Please keep in mind that the payment must come directly from the IRA administrator so the timing may be out of the donor’s control, especially as it gets closer to the end of the year.

For technical questions about tax-free IRA contributions, please contact the Gift Planning Office at 510-642-6300 or 800-200-0575. If you are ready to initiate a direct contribution from an IRA, please contact Gift Planning at 510-642-6300 or by email at ogp@berkeley.edu.