Donating to Charity? You Could Get a Bigger Tax Write-Off This Year.
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Here's your money briefing for Tuesday, December 14th. I'm J.R. Whalen for The Wall Street Journal. It's the season of giving, charitable giving that is. And while it's great to be generous just for generosity's sake, donating to charity can also come with significant tax benefits. And this year, the benefits are open to more people than usual.
This year, and only for this year, single people can deduct $300 of qualified charitable donations, and couples can deduct $600 of qualified charitable donations.
Coming up, our tax reporter Laura Saunders will be here to discuss how to claim tax deductions for donated cash, stock, or even cryptocurrency. That's after the break.
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Charitable donations are a great way of supporting a cause you believe in. They're also a widely used way of driving down your tax bill. But there are some key rule changes this year that could lead to bigger benefits, meaning a smaller tax bill for people who might not normally get a deduction. WSJ tax reporter Laura Saunders is here to walk us through them. Laura, thanks so much for being here.
Thanks so much for having me.
So Laura, let's do a little Charitable Donations 101 for a moment. What are some of the reasons why donations matter for your taxes?
The thing is, most people are charitable, especially around the end of the year. When you make a charitable contribution that's qualified, that's deducted from your taxable income, and that causes you to owe less income tax. And in some cases, you get a deduction. In some cases, you don't. And so you want Uncle Sam to share the deduction with you to pick up part of the cost of it.
You know, a lot of the time, charitable donations benefit large donors the most. But what about the rest of us? Are there any benefits your average donor should know about this year?
This year, and only for this year, single people can deduct $300 of qualified charitable donations and couples can deduct $600 of qualified charitable donations, even if they don't itemize on Schedule A. That's really important because most of the time you need to itemize deductions for home mortgage or state taxes or charitable deductions on Schedule A.
Now, a moment ago, you mentioned the need for a donation to be a qualified contribution. What does that mean?
It means it's to a qualified charity. And a qualified charity, for most cases, for most of the time, for our readers, is a public charity. That's what you think of your church, the Girl Scouts, your college, things like that. There are other rules for private foundation gifts and things like that.
Now, in order to get these $300 or $600 deductions, does the donation have to be in a certain form?
What tax change this year allows non‑itemizers to deduct charitable donations?
It has to be a cash donation. It can't be donations of your used clothing and things like that. You can do that separately, but that's not what this is about. It has to be a cash donation. Well, what is cash? Cash is a check. It's a debit card payment, a credit card payment, or an electronic funds transfer.
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