Donation deductibility

Which donations are deductible?

Basically, donations are not tax deductible as a use of income. However, there is a tax deductibility for donations for favored purposes to favored institutions. These are either explicitly listed in the law (research and scientific institutions, museums, volunteer fire departments and the state fire department associations) or appear in the list of beneficiary institutions on the website of the Federal Ministry of Finance (associations pursuing charitable purposes, development or disaster aid, environment, nature and species conservation, animal shelters, art and culture).

If a donation is made to an organization that is neither included in the law, nor in the list of the Federal Ministry of Finance, the donation is considered non-deductible. Therefore, before making a donation, please make sure that the organization actually belongs to the group of beneficiaries. A note such as "Your donation is tax deductible" on a flyer or folder is not sufficient.

What amount is deductible?

For companies, material and cash donations are deductible as business expenses up to a maximum of 10 percent of profits (before taking into account the profit allowance).

For private individuals, monetary donations are deductible as special expenses in the amount of 10 percent of the total amount of income.

Due to the COVID 19 crisis, the 10 percent limit can also be applied to 2019 as an exception in the assessment years 2020 and 2021.

How does the automatic tax recognition of your donations work?

Since 2017, the amounts you have contributed are automatically taken into account in your assessment and are therefore tax-deductible if you provide the donation organization with your first and last name and your date of birth. It is important that you provide your data correctly and, in particular, that the spelling of your name matches that on the registration form. Whether the donations were actually reported can be checked in FinanzOnline.

This automatic tax consideration does not apply to donations from business assets.

Currently: "donations" for disaster relief with advertising effect

In addition to the donations described above, companies have the option of writing off aid provided in connection with acute disasters at home or abroad as "advertising expenses" for tax purposes.

Natural disasters, technical disasters, warlike events, terrorist attacks or other humanitarian catastrophes qualify as catastrophes. The prerequisite for this is advertising effectiveness. This is given if the aid is reported in the media, in the case of references on customer letters, on posters, in displays, at the customer checkout or on the company's homepage, or similar.

For the deductibility of promotional "disaster donations", it does not matter who the recipients are.

For more information on the tax treatment of aid, visit: https://www.usp.gv.at/umwelt-verkehr/katastrophenfaelle/hilfsmoeglichkeiten-fuer-unternehmen.html