Whoa! The principle,teachers & staff at our school (145 kids) would be upset about receiving a gift for that amount from the kids money. We give every teacher a gift at the end of the year and spend around 20.00 per teacher/staff. Last year we gave them mugs with a painting of the school and our name on, they cost us about 7.00 each. The teachers absolutely LOVED them. We gave the principle hers first and her eyes lit up and her mouth dropped open. There isn't anything we could of done (for almost any amount of money) that they would of loved more. We quite often give plants, getting a discount from a local greenhouse, we've done small gift certificates to a local bookstore (10.00 or so). These gifts are appreciation gifts not B-day gifts. I do agree that teachers need to know how appreciated they are all through the year. Once in awhile I'll put a small piece of candy in every mailbox or make up a little business card that reads "Thanks for being you and Thanks for all you do". When we've had teachers retire we've had plaques made up with a photograph of the school, their names and number of years teaching, etc., these cost way under the 150.00 spent on B-day gifts. Remember, it truly is the Thought that counts.
Good Luck! Kidsfirst
Hi Terri! We had a similar situation at our school. Our situation was different in that some members considered our Teacher Fund a gift and some considered it a reimbursement account. Ours was also a substantial amount ($175). We checked with the IRS for advice. You can see all the details in the Discussion Forums under Free for All listed as Teacher Fund and Accountability. Hope the information helps!
Forget the IRS here, my question is do the Principal and Vice Principal expect this gift giving? Do you give gifts to the teachers? To the Janitors? To other staff members? Is this a tradition who's time has come and maybe gone? If I were a teacher, a parent or depending on the age of your kids - a child - I would feel very offened if the answer to my first Question were yes!
And once again, I need to ask is any of this documented? Do you have rules (policy and guidelines approved by the PTO/PTA board) for this gift giving?
If you need a tool to do something or to stop something use the written word, approved or rejected by your board and maintained in your policies and guidelines.
Tim's correct--it's not against the IRS rules to give someone a gift >$25; that's just their gift limit for what they think is reasonable for you to deduct on your tax return. It's just a bit of a bookkeeping hassle if the gift is larger than $25. I guess my point was that if you're looking to get away from giving a gift as large as you're talking about, people are so scared of what the IRS might do to them that the $25 guideline is a good one to throw out there.
Going back to the topic, I'd just like to throw in that i don't think the IRS would explicitly have a problem with a $150 gift to the principal.
I think it sounds like a lot (but what would you do if a great principal was retiring after 40 years?), but I don't think it's necessarily against the rules.
If your group raised $1000 total each year, and you were giving $300 gifts to three people -- that seems to be pretty clearly excessive.
On the other hand, if your group raises $30,000 and you give a total of $500 in gifts each year (especially if the gifts are to folks who've gone above and beyond for your school), I don't think that's a legal problem. I'll try and get Sany Pfau Englund (our nonprofit law expert) to chime in on this one.
Not trying to get flamed here. Agree that $150 is high for a straight gift and that there are better ways, but I don't think that's because it's per se against the rules.
