How Much May Be Contributed
Your contributions1 to Federal candidates and committees
are limited under the law. You, the contributor, and the committee to which you
give are both legally responsible for making sure that your contribution does
not exceed your contribution limits. The paragraphs below list the contribution
limits for individuals.
Contribution Limits
An individual may give a maximum of:
* $2,300 per election to a Federal
candidate or the candidate's campaign committee.2 Notice that the limit applies
separately to each election. Primaries, runoffs and general elections are
considered separate elections.
* $5,000 per calendar year
to a PAC. This limit applies to a PAC (political action committee) that supports
Federal candidates. (PACs are neither party committees nor candidate committees.
Some PACs are sponsored by corporations and unions--trade, industry and labor
PACs. Other PACs, often ideological, do not have a corporate or labor sponsor
and are therefore called nonconnected PACs.) PACs use your contributions to make
their own contributions to Federal candidates and to fund other election-related
activities.
* $10,000 per calendar year to a State or
local party committee. A State party committee shares its limits with local
party committees in that state unless a local committee's independence can be
demonstrated.
* $28,500 per calendar year to a national
party committee. This limit applies separately to a party's national committee,
House campaign committee and Senate campaign committee.
*
$108,200 total biennial limit. This biennial limit places a ceiling on your
total contributions, as explained below.
* $100 in
currency (cash) to any political committee. (Anonymous cash contributions may
not exceed $50.) Contributions exceeding $100 must be made by check, money order
or other written instrument.
$108,200 Biennial Limit
You have a biennial (two year) limit of $108,200 on your
total contributions to Federal candidates and Federal political committees
combined. Of the $108,200, an individual may contribute no more than $42,700 to
candidates and no more than $65,500 to all PACs and parties (no more than
$42,700 of the $65,500 may be given to committees that are not national party
committees).
Presidential Campaigns
The contribution limits work a little differently for Presidential campaigns. In the case of a Presidential candidate running in various State primaries, you may contribute up to $2,300 for the entire primary campaign period--not $2,300 for each State primary in which the candidate runs.
Your contributions may be supplemented with Federal (U.S. Treasury) funds. If a Presidential primary candidate has qualified for the Federal matching fund program, up to $250 of your total contributions to that candidate may be matched with Federal funds. To qualify for matching, contributions must be in the form of a check or other written instrument. (Note that some contributions are not matchable, such as currency, loans, goods and services, and any type of contribution from a political committee.)
In the general election, however, you may not make any contributions to the campaigns of Democratic or Republican nominees who receive Federal funds. (Federal funding in the general election takes the form of direct government grants rather than matching payments.) You may nevertheless designate a contribution of up to $2,300 to the candidate's compliance fund, a special account used to pay for certain legal and accounting expenses. You may also contribute up to $2,300 to the general election campaign of any Presidential candidate who is not a Federally funded Democratic or Republican nominee.
Federal funds used in Presidential elections come from
the dollars voluntarily checked off by taxpayers on their Federal income tax
returns. (The checkoff does not affect the total amount of taxes paid or any
refund due.)
Designated Contributions
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) encourages you, when making a contribution to a candidate, to designate which election the contribution is for. By doing this, you will avoid any confusion as to which election limit applies to your contribution. To designate a contribution, write the name of the specific election on your check (or other written instrument). Or attach a signed statement with the same information.
If you do not designate a contribution to a candidate, your contribution automatically applies to your $2,300 limit for the candidate's next election. In other words, if you make3 an undesignated contribution after the candidate has won the primary but before the general election, your contribution counts against your $2,300 limit for the general. Similarly, if you make an undesignated contribution after the general election, it automatically applies toward the limit for the next election in which the candidate runs for Federal office.
If, however, you want a contribution to count against your limit for an election other than the candidate's upcoming election, you must designate the contribution. For example, suppose you want your contribution to count against the candidate's general election, even though the primary has not yet taken place. In this case, you must designate the contribution for the general. Or, if you want to help a candidate retire campaign debts for a past election, you must designate your contribution for that specific election.
Under certain circumstances, if you make an excessive
contribution to a candidate committee, the committee may redesignate your
contribution. When this occurs, the committee must notify you within 60 days,
and must offer you the opportunity to receive a refund instead.
Joint
Contributions
If two or more individuals want to make a contribution
using one check drawn on a joint account, all the contributors must sign the
check or an attached statement. The check or signed statement must show how much
should be attributed to each donor, unless the the contribution is to be equally
divided among the contributors.
Contributions from Family Members
A husband and wife each have separate contribution limits, even if only one spouse has an income. For example, a couple may contribute a $4,600 check to a candidate's primary campaign as long as both sign the check (or an attached statement), as explained above.