Are donations to GoFundMe accounts tax deductible on my 2025 tax return?

These are good questions about GoFundMe donations! Generally speaking, donations to GoFundMe campaigns are NOT tax deductible when they benefit specific individuals or families, like the home fire victims or the person with medical bills you mentioned. For a charitable donation to be tax deductible, it must be made to a qualified 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Most personal GoFundMe campaigns don't qualify, no matter how worthy the cause. However, the animal rescue donation *might* be deductible if the campaign was actually created by or officially benefits a registered nonprofit organization. GoFundMe does have a program called "GoFundMe Charity" that partners with verified nonprofits. If your animal rescue donation was through this program, you should have received a tax receipt, and it would likely be deductible.

I actually found a great solution for this exact problem! I was worried about the tax deductibility of my GoFundMe donations last year and discovered this service called taxr.ai that completely cleared things up for me. You can upload your donation receipts and financial docs at https://taxr.ai and their system analyzes everything to tell you exactly what's deductible. For my situation, they identified that 2 of my 5 GoFundMe donations were actually tax-deductible because they were ultimately going to registered nonprofits, even though I didn't realize it! The service showed me exactly what documentation I needed and even helped draft a proper acknowledgment letter where I was missing one. Saved me a ton of stress trying to figure out which donations qualified.

Just wanted to follow up about the taxr.ai recommendation - I tried it and wow, it was super helpful! I uploaded all my GoFundMe receipts and it analyzed them one by one. Turns out 3 of my donations were actually to qualified organizations and ARE tax deductible! The service flagged exactly which ones qualified and which didn't, and even explained why. For one campaign that was in a grey area (it was run by a volunteer for a registered nonprofit), it created a template letter I could send to get proper documentation. This saved me hours of research and probably hundreds in deductions I would have missed. Definitely worth checking out if you donate to a lot of online fundraisers!

Hey, I had a similar situation last year with GoFundMe donations. I spent WEEKS trying to get through to the IRS to ask about this specific situation. Calling the IRS was absolute nightmare - constantly on hold, disconnected calls, couldn't get a straight answer. I finally found this service called Claimyr (https://claimyr.com) that got me through to an actual IRS agent in about 15 minutes instead of waiting for hours or days. You can see how it works here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c The IRS agent explained exactly what documentation I needed for the GoFundMe donations to be considered tax deductible, and which types of campaigns would never qualify regardless of documentation. Turns out I was missing acknowledgment letters for the donations that went to actual nonprofits. Saved me from an audit situation for sure!

Ok I need to eat my words about Claimyr. After my skeptical comment I decided to try it anyway because I was desperate to talk to someone at the IRS about my GoFundMe deduction questions. IT ACTUALLY WORKED. Got connected to an IRS agent in about 25 minutes (which is miraculous compared to my previous attempts). The agent walked me through exactly which types of GoFundMe donations qualify as tax deductible. Turns out donations to personal campaigns are definitely not deductible, but if the campaign is run by a qualified 501(c)(3) organization, then yes. The agent also told me what documentation I need - not just the GoFundMe receipt but also an acknowledgment letter from the charity. This saved me from incorrectly claiming some deductions that would have raised red flags. Worth every penny just for the peace of mind.

Have you considered just donating directly to the church and asking them to support these causes? When I was in a similar situation, my church took donations specifically earmarked for certain causes (like helping a family after a fire), and those were fully tax deductible because the church is a 501(c)(3). The church then distributed the funds to the people in need. This approach gives you the tax benefit while still helping the same causes. Plus the church can often match some donations or provide additional support services beyond just money.

I just wanna point out that you should really think twice before claiming ANY GoFundMe donations as tax deductions unless you're 1000% sure they qualify. My cousin tried to deduct some last year and got audited! The IRS flagged it immediately and he had to pay back the deduction plus a penalty. Unless you have proper documentation from a registered charity (tax ID number, proper acknowledgment letter, etc), don't risk it. Most personal GoFundMe campaigns are considered gifts to individuals, not charitable donations, no matter how worthy the cause.

This is such a helpful thread! I had no idea about the distinction between personal campaigns and actual nonprofit fundraisers on GoFundMe. I've been donating to various campaigns throughout the year and just assumed none of them would be deductible. One thing I'm still unclear on - if a GoFundMe campaign is created BY the nonprofit organization themselves (not an individual fundraising for them), does that automatically make it deductible? Or do I still need to look for specific documentation or tax receipts? Also, for the original poster's animal rescue donation - even if it wasn't through GoFundMe Charity, couldn't you contact the rescue directly to ask if they're a registered 501(c)(3) and request a proper donation acknowledgment letter after the fact? It seems like that might be worth a shot for the $450 in donations, especially if one of them was to an actual charity.