Your out-of-pocket savings for travel can be substantial as a volunteer because your service program fees, air fare, visa, and related travel expenses are generally tax deductible for U.S. taxpayers. The principle reason you receive this benefit as a U.S. tax-payer is you perform the work of Global Volunteers.
(See IRS Form 526)
We strictly adhere to the IRS requirement that you work, on average,
eight hours per day, five days out of seven to ensure you can claim this tax benefit. The service program time eligible is from the time you arrive in and depart from the host country, assuming a direct route and reasonable travel time. Daily travel time to/from the work site and your lodging isn't included in the eight-hour requirement. However, you can include reasonable preparation and planning time. For example, we generally conduct a half-hour team meeting every morning to prepare for the day's work.
In addition, when your work project includes teaching, we expect that you will prepare one hour for every hour of teaching. Regardless of the work project on which you are engaged, we recommend that you keep a personal journal detailing the hours you work for tax purposes.
Please note that additional travel or vacation either before or after the service program may disqualify all or part of your service program fee, air fare, etc., from being a charitable deduction.
When combining federal and state income tax savings, the average volunteer will save about 33 percent of the total cost of the service program. We also offer discounts that can save you up to $800 on an international service program fee.
