Your receipt and the donor number

Within one business day: a written acknowledgment with CEN SGO's legal name and EIN, your name, the date, the amount, your designated school, a statement that the donation is a qualified contribution under §25F and that no goods or services were provided, and your donor number.

After the year ends, you also get a summary of all your qualified contributions for the year. Treasury's preview describes that annual acknowledgment, showing the total and your donor number. (Source: Treasury guidance preview, June 9, 2026)

Under the system Treasury previewed in June 2026, the SGO generates a unique donor number by an IRS-provided method and puts it on your acknowledgment. The SGO reports your donation to the IRS under that number. You report the same number on your return. The IRS matches the two, much as it matches a W-2. You never hand the SGO your SSN. (Source: Treasury guidance preview, June 9, 2026. Not final.)

The matching is meant to confirm that a claimed credit ties to a real donor, a real SGO and real donations. An earlier IRS notice had floated having SGOs collect donors' taxpayer ID numbers instead. The June preview moved away from that. (Source: Notice 2025-70, §4.05)

When you donate, choose the federal program. The law makes an SGO keep federal-credit donations in a separate account, apart from other money. That's how CEN knows which dollars to report under your donor number. If you're also donating for a state credit, make it a separate donation. (Source: §25F(c)(5)(B))

• Your name is spelled the way it is on your tax return.
• The amount and date match your bank or card record.
• It's marked as a qualified contribution for the federal credit.
• It shows your donor number.

If anything is wrong or missing, email us before you file. It's much easier to fix before the IRS matches your return.

Keep them at least three years after you file. If you carry credit forward, keep them until three years after you file the return that uses the last of it.

Donate in the name of the person who'll claim the credit, and use the name as it appears on the tax return. The credit belongs to the taxpayer who made the donation. If you're married and waiting on Treasury's joint-filer rules, ask your preparer whose name to use. (Source: §25F(a))

• Filing before your year-end summary arrives, then finding a donation missing.
• Using the donor number from someone else's acknowledgment, such as a spouse's.
• Handing your preparer a state receipt for the federal credit, or the other way round.
• Sending CEN your Social Security number. We'll never ask for it.

A state donation gets its own receipt. Ohio, for example, won't allow its credit unless you give the tax commissioner a copy of the SGO's receipt. Keep federal and state receipts apart, and tell your preparer which is which. (Source: Ohio R.C. 5747.73(B))

The exact acknowledgment format and the IRS form. Both are expected before the 2028 filing season. We'll update this page and email donors on the list.