80G Donation Receipts: What Indian NGOs Need to Include

What the 80G deduction is

Section 80G of the Income-tax Act, 1961 allows donors to claim a deduction for eligible donations made to approved charitable institutions. For your donors to actually receive that benefit, two things must be true: your NGO must hold a valid 80G registration (approval) from the Income Tax Department, and you must issue receipts and file donation reports correctly. Registration is obtained and periodically renewed by filing the prescribed application (Form 10AB) on the income tax e-filing portal, and donors can verify an organisation's approval status online.

If your receipts or filings are wrong, the deduction can be denied to the donor even though your registration is valid — which is why receipt discipline matters as much as the registration itself.

Two scope points are worth knowing upfront. First, only monetary donations qualify — donations in kind (goods, materials, services) are not eligible for an 80G deduction, however valuable they are to your work. Second, the deduction available to the donor — whether 100% or 50% of the donated amount, and whether subject to a qualifying limit linked to the donor's income — depends on the category your organisation is approved under. Your 80G approval order states your category, and donors should confirm the benefit applicable to them with their own tax adviser.

Mandatory details on an 80G donation receipt

An 80G-compliant receipt should contain the following fields. Missing any of them can make the receipt unusable at tax-filing time:

• Name and address of the NGO, exactly as registered with the Income Tax Department.
• PAN of the NGO.
• The NGO's 80G registration number — the Unique Registration Number (URN) from your 80G approval order, along with its validity period.
• Name of the donor.
• PAN of the donor — required for the donor to claim the deduction and for your Form 10BD reporting. Collect it at the time of donation wherever possible.
• Donation amount in figures and in words, to prevent alteration or ambiguity.
• Date of the donation and a unique, sequential receipt number.
• Mode of payment — cash, cheque, demand draft or electronic transfer. Note that cash donations above the prescribed limit (currently ₹2,000) are not eligible for an 80G deduction at all, so encourage banking channels for larger gifts.
• Type of donation — whether it is a corpus donation (restricted to the organisation's capital fund) or a voluntary/general donation, since tax treatment differs.

Form 10BD and Form 10BE: the annual reporting loop

Issuing receipts is only half the job. Since assessment year 2022–23, NGOs with 80G approval must also report donations electronically:

• Form 10BD — a statement of donations received during the financial year, filed on the income tax e-filing portal. It lists each donor's details (including PAN), amounts and receipt numbers. The statutory due date is 31 May following the end of the financial year.
• Form 10BE — the donation certificate you generate and issue to each donor after filing 10BD. Donors use 10BE (not just your paper receipt) to claim the deduction, and the amounts are cross-checked against their Annual Information Statement (AIS).

Practical consequence: the name, PAN and amount on your receipt, your 10BD entry and the donor's 10BE must match exactly. A mismatch can trigger queries for both the donor and your organisation.

Record-keeping tips that prevent year-end panic

• Use one sequential receipt series per financial year, with duplicates retained — never reuse or skip numbers.
• Maintain a donor master with name, PAN, address, email and phone, so 10BD data entry is an export, not a scavenger hunt.
• Reconcile receipts to bank deposits monthly. It is far easier to fix a mismatch in the same month than in May.
• Tag corpus vs general donations at the moment of receipt, not later.
• Keep digital copies of every issued receipt, the filed 10BD, and generated 10BE certificates, with backups.
• Track your 80G renewal date — registration has a validity period and renewal must be filed before expiry.

Setting up a compliant receipt process

Turn the rules above into a routine that survives staff changes:

1. Create a fixed receipt template with every mandatory field, so no receipt can be issued half-complete.
2. Capture donor PAN and contact details in the donation form itself, not as a follow-up request.
3. Issue the receipt immediately, and log it in the register the same day.
4. Review the register monthly against bank statements, and start preparing 10BD data well before the 31 May deadline.

Common mistakes to avoid

The errors we see most often: receipts without the 80G URN or donor PAN, amounts written only in figures, cash receipts above the eligible limit, and 10BD filings made from memory rather than from receipt records. Each is avoidable with a fixed receipt template and a disciplined register.

Most of this discipline comes down to having donor data, receipts and reports in one system rather than scattered across notebooks and spreadsheets. Our Donexia NGO CRM software is built for exactly this: donor records with PAN, sequential receipt generation, corpus tagging and export-ready reports for your 10BD filing. NGOs also benefit from a credible web presence when fundraising — see our guide on choosing a website design company if your site needs attention too.