YOP Tax Credits

Variety Adventure Camp is considered a Youth Opportunity Program (YOP) by the state of Missouri, designed to broaden and strengthen opportunities for positive development and participation in community life for youth, and to discourage such persons from engaging in criminal and violent behavior.

Donors who support Variety Adventure Camp receive half of their donation amount back in the form of Missouri tax credits from the state’s Department of Economic Development.

Generally, anyone with a Missouri income tax liability may use the 50-percent YOP tax credits like vouchers at the time they submit their tax filings. Other state and federal charitable deductions apply as well. (See example on next page.)

The available tax credits are allocated on a first-come, first-serve basis. To state your intent to make a YOP donation or to reserve tax credits for a future donation, please contact the YOP project director at the Variety St. Louis office. She can also explain the process related to gifts of stocks and bonds and answer any questions about Variety’s YOP project.

Donations of $500 or more are eligible. Donors have the tax year of the donation plus five tax years in which to use the tax credits. We are asking you to please consider increasing your annual giving while this program allows you to reduce your actual cost of giving. (Most donors will be able to double their gifts and still maintain the same or better tax benefits.)

Contributions eligible for YOP tax credits include cash, stocks and bonds that will be used to support Variety’s Adventure Camp, a three-week summer day camp for children with physical or multiple disabilities. (Donations designated for Variety special events or other programs are not eligible for Tax Credits.) The process for claiming your YOP tax credits is summarized below:

1. Contact Variety’s YOP project director Karen Haglin, 314-720-7703, to check on the availability of tax credits and/or to reserve tax credits for a future donation.
2. In response to a YOP donation, Variety will send the donor a simple one-page Missouri DED Application for Claiming Tax Credits (Form 135-460). The application must be signed in the presence of a Notary Public and returned to Variety.
3. Variety will endorse the application and forward it to the State. [The tax credit application must be submitted to the State within twelve months of the date of YOP contribution (date on the check) to submit.]
4. Upon receipt of the complete application, the Missouri Department of Economic Development will issue a certification (MO-TC form) within approximately two weeks (turnaround may be slower between December 1 and April 15).
5. The donor may then file his or her tax return using the MO-TC form, with YOP tax credits applied to the Missouri income tax liability for that tax period.