Thats only because of how the standard deduction works; If you have to itemize, then any amount of charitable donations can be deducted (up to like 60% of your AGI i think). Basically anyone needs to “outweigh” the standard deduction with their own deductions, because doing otherwise is worse. Technically i think you could forgo the standard deduction and use your own, even if you don’t go over the standard deduction, but why would you?
That’s the point: almost nobody benefits from charitable donations because almost everybody takes the standard deduction, so “but you can get tax benefits for donating!” is a red herring in almost all cases.
Thats only because of how the standard deduction works; If you have to itemize, then any amount of charitable donations can be deducted (up to like 60% of your AGI i think). Basically anyone needs to “outweigh” the standard deduction with their own deductions, because doing otherwise is worse. Technically i think you could forgo the standard deduction and use your own, even if you don’t go over the standard deduction, but why would you?
That’s the point: almost nobody benefits from charitable donations because almost everybody takes the standard deduction, so “but you can get tax benefits for donating!” is a red herring in almost all cases.
That catch on current code is that they combined exemption with standard deduction. Makes it quite a bit more difficult than the before times.
I’ll leave it at that as I’m generally overwhelmed with unparalleled Internet tax expertise any time the subject arises.