<prompt> Human: A little bit of background:I am a university student in Texas, and I am a part of an organization whose faculty adviser was recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. We organized a 5kHalf Marathon and through ticket sales, shirt orders, and a GoFundMe donation account, we were able to raise roughly 2000.We didnt want to give our adviser a stack of cash, so we deposited the money into our student organization finance center account the university-run organization bank, basically?. When we tried to cut a check for the money, the finance center stopped us and said that we would be paying 28 of our donation as a federal income tax backup withholding and only 1440 would be going to our adviser because they would be considering it an award rather than a donation.So they gave us three options:1. Gross up the amount to 2800, using about 800 from ourthe organizations pockets to hit 2000 after the withholding fee.2. Suck it up and give only 1440 to our adviser, with the rest going to the Finance Center for tax purposes?.3. Get a Federal Identification Number and Recipients IRS W-9 for it to be listed as a donation, rather than an award.My questions are as follows:How do we go about getting a federal identification number for our donation recipient?If we provide the advisers W-9 and federal identification number, will that money be taxedwithheld after she receives it? i.e. will she have to file that money as taxable income after she receives it?Is there any exemption that will allow her to not have to pay 28 on her side?I appreciate any help you can provide.Edits: Formatting  <response>: OK please tell the PUTZ in finance this is a charitable gift given with no legal or moral obligation. If they would like to see the precedence for this not being taxable to please read IRS Bulletin No. 199944 Issue2 regarding Section 102 and they can read the case United States v. Kaiser, 363 U.S. 299, 304Since it is way the hell under the gift limit they need to stop over thinking shit. They are treating this as if you were paying the individual for services received by this person. Sorry for the rant.EDIT As uPlaydoughed picked up on in this post Enrichment by him being a faculty adviser it is an insider issue and enrichment to donategive a gift to an insider. I cannot believe I missed that issue. 