1.6. Making a Donation and Getting a Tax Receipt

GNU Taler Wallet allows you to make private, secure donations to organizations and projects that support the Taler payment system. If your tax authority and the charity both support it, your wallet can also generate a privacy-preserving receipt of your total yearly donations, simplifying your tax filing.

We will use the Taler demo service for demonstration.

1.6.1. Accessing the Donation Page

To begin, open the website of a merchant or project that accepts Taler donations.

You will typically see a button such as «Donate with Taler» or «Support us».

When you click it, a QR code appears on the screen, which you can scan with your mobile wallet.

Once scanned, the wallet fetches the donation order and displays it for review.

1.6.2. Donation order review

After scanning the QR code, the wallet opens the Review payment screen.

Reviewing a donation before payment in Taler Wallet.

This screen summarizes the donation order received from the merchant.

It displays:

• Merchant name – the organization receiving the donation (for example, GNUnet Merchant).

• Donation amount – the total amount to be paid.

• Tax receipt option – a toggle that allows you to request a tax-deductible donation receipt.

• Pay button – confirms the payment and completes the donation.

To request a tax receipt, enable the “Receive tax-deductible donation receipt” toggle before pressing the Pay button.

If you do not need a tax receipt, simply leave the toggle disabled and continue.

Nota

If no donation authority is configured in your wallet, or if the configured authority doesn’t support this type of payment, enabling the “Receive tax-deductible donation receipt” toggle will show an option to Select tax authority.

In this case, you have two options:

1. Proceed without a tax receipt – leave the toggle off and press Pay to complete the donation. Your donation will be processed normally, but no tax receipt will be issued.

2. Configure a donation authority that supports this payment – press Select tax authority button to set it up and input tax payer ID.

Setup tax authority screen in Taler Wallet.

This ensures that only valid Tax authorities are used for generating official tax receipts, based on the merchant’s supported jurisdictions.

Once everything is correct, tap Pay button to complete the donation. You can also select Cancel at the bottom of the screen to stop the process.

1.6.3. Donation tax receipts

After a successful payment, the wallet will show Donation statements section in Assets page.

At the end of the year, when you need to file your taxes, open this section and click on the entry for your respective tax authority.

You can provide this QR code to your tax authority to claim your tax deduction.

Your tax authority can verify the authenticity of this statement using their official verification system.

Nota

At the end of the year, you receive one combined donation statement covering all donations made through Taler during that tax period. This simplifies your paperwork and ensures your privacy — the tax authority only learns your total deductible amount, not the individual charities you supported.

1.6.4. Managing donation authority

You can manage or update your tax authority directly from the wallet settings.

Open Settings → Tax-deductible donations to change the authority URL or your donor tax ID.

See Setup tax authority screen in Taler Wallet. for an example of this screen.

After updating, press Save to apply the changes.