80G Receipt Format: What the Income Tax Department Actually Checks

Every year, hundreds of donors across India face a frustrating situation: they donated to a temple or trust, received a receipt, filed their tax return — and the deduction was rejected. The receipt existed. The donation was genuine. But the format was wrong.

For temple committees and trust administrators, this is more than a paperwork problem. A rejected 80G claim damages your relationship with the donor. It can trigger a notice to your institution. And in an audit, a batch of incorrectly formatted receipts puts your entire tax-exempt status at risk.

This guide covers exactly what the Income Tax department checks when scrutinising 80G receipts — and what your committee must include on every single one.

What gives an 80G receipt its legal validity?

An 80G receipt is not just an acknowledgment of payment. It is a legal document under the Income Tax Act, 1961 that your institution issues on behalf of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT). The receipt is your certification that:

1. Your institution is registered under Section 80G (or 80G(5))
2. The donation qualifies for deduction under the applicable sub-section
3. The donor's details are accurate and verifiable
4. The amount has been received and recorded in your books

If any of these certifications turn out to be false or incomplete, the liability falls on both the institution and, in some cases, the trustees personally.

The mandatory fields — CBDT requirement checklist

The CBDT has prescribed specific fields that every 80G receipt must contain. A receipt missing even one of these fields is technically invalid for the donor's tax claim.

Institution details (top of receipt)

• Full registered name of the institution exactly as it appears in the registration certificate
• Complete address including PIN code
• PAN of the institution — mandatory, not optional
• 80G registration number in the format issued by the CIT (Exemptions) office
• Validity period of the 80G registration — "valid from [date] to [date]" or "perpetual" for post-2022 registrations

Donor details (body of receipt)

• Full name of donor as per PAN card — not a nickname or shortened version
• PAN of donor — mandatory for all donations above ₹2,000 regardless of payment mode; for donations in kind, PAN is always mandatory
• Complete address of donor — required for Form 10BD filing
• Mobile number or email — required for Form 10BE generation

Donation details

• Date of receipt of the donation — must match your books of accounts
• Amount in figures and words — both must match; discrepancies are a red flag in scrutiny
• Mode of payment — cash, cheque, demand draft, UPI, NEFT/RTGS or kind. The mode must be stated explicitly
• Cheque/DD/UPI reference number — required for non-cash donations; leave blank only for cash
• Bank name and branch — for cheque and DD donations
• Nature of donation — corpus donation, general donation, or donation for specific purpose. This affects how you account for it internally

Receipt identification

• Unique sequential receipt number — must follow a continuous, unbroken sequence for each financial year. Gaps in receipt numbers are scrutinised in audits
• Financial year for which the receipt is issued
• Signature of authorised signatory with name and designation
• Institutional seal (recommended, not legally mandatory but expected during audit)

What the Income Tax department specifically looks for in scrutiny

When your institution's returns are selected for scrutiny — or when a donor's return is questioned — the assessing officer cross-references the receipt against several things.

Cross-reference with Form 10BD

Since FY 2021-22, institutions must file Form 10BD annually, listing every donor who received an 80G receipt. If a donor's name, PAN or amount on their receipt does not match what you filed in Form 10BD, both claims will be questioned.

This means your receipt-issuance process and your Form 10BD filing must draw from the same dataset. Institutions that issue handwritten receipts and then enter data separately into Form 10BD introduce errors at this stage.

PAN verification

The IT department verifies donor PAN numbers against the CBDT database. If the PAN on the receipt does not match the donor's actual PAN (a common error when receipts are hand-typed), the deduction is rejected outright.

Receipt number continuity

If your institution issues receipt numbers 001 to 150, then jumps to 175, the officer will ask what happened to receipts 151 to 174. Common explanations (cancelled receipts, lost receipt books) are accepted only if you have a supporting record. Missing receipt number documentation is treated as a possible concealment of income.

Cash donation limits

Section 80G does not allow deductions on cash donations above ₹2,000. If your receipt shows a cash donation of ₹5,000, the donor cannot claim a deduction — but more importantly, if you issue a receipt certifying it as deductible, you are making a false certification. Officers watch for large cash amounts paired with 80G receipts.

Common format errors that lead to rejection

These are the errors that appear most frequently when charitable institutions face donor complaints or audit notices.

| Error | Consequence | |---|---| | PAN missing or incorrect | Deduction rejected; donor cannot refile | | Institution's 80G number expired | Entire batch of receipts invalid | | Amount in figures does not match words | Receipt treated as invalid | | Cash receipt above ₹2,000 shows deductible | False certification; officer notice | | Donor name differs from PAN records | Mismatch with Form 10BD; scrutiny | | Receipt number not sequential | Audit red flag; income concealment suspicion | | No mode of payment stated | Receipt incomplete; officer can reject | | Wrong financial year on receipt | Donor cannot match to their return |

The difference between corpus and general donations on a receipt

This is one of the most misunderstood distinctions in temple accounting.

A corpus donation is a permanent contribution to the principal fund of the institution — the donor explicitly states it is for the corpus and it cannot be spent on day-to-day operations. A general donation goes into the institution's regular income and can be used for approved charitable purposes.

The distinction matters on the receipt because:

• Corpus donations are not included in your income for the year — they go directly to the balance sheet
• General donations are included in income and must be applied to charitable purposes within the prescribed time limit
• An officer reviewing your accounts will check that amounts marked as corpus on receipts are shown as corpus in your books — if they appear as income, it raises a discrepancy

Always state clearly on the receipt: "General Donation" or "Corpus Donation as per donor's explicit instructions".

How software eliminates format errors

The underlying reason most temples issue incorrectly formatted receipts is not negligence — it is that the person generating the receipt does not know all the rules, and a handwritten or Word-template receipt has no built-in validation.

A proper system enforces every mandatory field before a receipt can be printed. It maintains a continuous receipt register, cross-references donor PAN at entry, and generates the same dataset that feeds Form 10BD.

If your institution is still issuing receipts from a physical book or a Word document, you are relying entirely on human memory to avoid every error listed above. One missed PAN, one skipped receipt number, one wrong year — and you are looking at a notice.

The audit preparation guide in this blog covers what to do if you receive a scrutiny notice. But the better question is: how do you make sure you never receive one?

Start by fixing your receipt format. Everything else in temple compliance flows from there.