Do you know about Oregon Cultural Trust Tax Credits? by Jennifer Parke, longtime CFS member
If you pay state income taxes and plan to donate money to support cultural nonprofit organizations like the Corvallis Folklore Society, you may wish to take advantage of the Oregon Cultural Trust Tax Credits program to reduce the amount of taxes you owe and double the impact of your donation.
Here’s how it works:
Step 1. You donate to one or more cultural nonprofits in Oregon, such as the Corvallis Folklore Society. Over 1,600 cultural nonprofits are listed on the Oregon Cultural Trust website; we are in the process of adding CFS to this list.
Step 2. Go to the Oregon Cultural Trust online donation portal https://appengine.egov.com/apps/or/oct/donationpayment and by Dec. 31 of the same year make a matching gift to the Oregon Cultural Trust to earn tax credits: up to $500 per individual, or $1,000 per couple filing jointly.
Step 3. When you file your state taxes, you apply the tax credits equal to 100% of your Oregon Cultural Trust donation to reduce the amount of taxes you owe. Tax credits provide much greater savings than a tax deduction.
Funds donated to the Oregon Cultural Trust are pooled and distributed as competitive grants to county and tribal cultural coalitions. CFS has already benefited from Oregon Cultural Trust funding! We were just awarded $2,000 to support music and dance workshops at next year’s Corvallis Celtic Festival. There are many charitable organizations worthy of your end-of-year donations. Not everyone is in a financial position to donate, but if you can, and you wish to support the arts and humanities, please consider donating to the Corvallis Folklore Society or other cultural nonprofit and then doubling the impact of your gift without additional cost to you using the Oregon Cultural Trust Tax Credit. For detailed information, see https://culturaltrust.org/
We are planning on adding a way to donate to CFS online, but for now, checks to the Corvallis Folklore Society can be mailed to P.O. Box 1690, Corvallis, OR 97339. If you wish, specify on the memo line how you wish your donation to be used (Corvallis Celtic Festival, contra dances, musical performances, etc.). Thank you!
