Short-term mission trips are often an integral part of the local church’s ministry efforts. However, the administrative issues are numerous and complicated for the church (as well as for donors and participants) in order to comply with tax regulations for a charitable deduction.

For simplicity purposes (and to limit the length of this blog article), let’s focus on one possible scenario, and that is that the participant pays for their own travel costs. (There are several other possibilities that are not addressed in this article including minors going on mission trips and who pays for them, does the church reimburse participants for travel costs, does the church or the participants solicit contributions specifically for the trip…and others.)
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