topic Charitable Contributions in Deductions & credits

Charitable Contributions

windmend — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 11:03:43 GMT

Entered $250 of charitable contributions but turbo tax 2020 posts $3541. This is a downloaded program. Turbo tax support says they are clueless. Tried it several times with same results. Any suggestions????

Re: Charitable Contributions

DawnC — Tue, 12 Apr 2022 01:48:42 GMT

You are using 2020 desktop TurboTax and you entered $250 on Line 10b (taking the standard deduction, but claiming the charitable contribution up to $300? Where are you seeing $3541 on your 2020 tax return? Did you enter it in the itemized deductions section?

Re: Charitable Contributions

windmend — Tue, 12 Apr 2022 13:39:20 GMT

Yes, in itemized deductions. Under personal tab/deductions & credits/charitable donations/donations to charity in 2020. TT support and I both tried to update, but would not change. Just went back in and entered $0 at all items, but now shows $3,275.

Re: Charitable Contributions

SteamTrain — Tue, 12 Apr 2022 14:18:10 GMT

Other places to check.

1) Donations thru the employer that show in box 14 of a W-2 can add to that number. Or possibly, if you do have box 14 entries, some other $$ there might be mis-categorized...edit any W-2 forms you have to check what's in box 14.....anything labelled as a Charitable Cash Contribution

2) State refunds that were donated thru state check-offs on the prior year's state tax return can add to that number

______________________________

One other thing you might try...since youa re using Desktop.

Switch to Forms Mode:

1) Look for something in the left column labelled "Charity Contrib" and open that and see what's there.

IF there is no worksheet labelled "Charity Contrib"

2) Go to the top left and

...2a) Click on the "Open Form" icon

...2b) From the Search window, just type "Chari" no more than that (without the quotes).

....2c) From the hits, select "Charitable Contributions Summary" and open that form, and see if those $3275 is listed there for something.

Re: Charitable Contributions

windmend — Wed, 13 Apr 2022 03:02:03 GMT

Thank you so much, but none of these helped.

Had one W-2 and nothing was entered in box 14

No State funds were entered.

Reviewed Charitable contributions in forms to no avail.

Started over with new whole new tax form. Went back through everything again and same thing happened in charitable contributions plus I entered $312 for utilities in business expenses, but prints out $1848 on Schedule C-Part II-Line 25. What else am I not catching.

Re: Charitable Contributions

SteamTrain — Wed, 13 Apr 2022 11:30:10 GMT

@windmend

Unfortunately, digging into your tax file cannot be done in a Public Forum. (And I, myself, am pretty clueless about business expenses)

For the Charity stuff

.......Since you started over and it's still there, all that I can think of is an automatic carry-over from last year.

Did you make some huge charity contributions last year? Perhaps more than what was allowed to be claimed last year, and thus a carryover to this year?

Re: Charitable Contributions

windmend — Fri, 15 Apr 2022 01:26:09 GMT

Thanks again for your help. With the assistance of Jasmine S. in support we finally figured it out. It is an issue with the program. Charitable contributions was automatically adding 60% of AGI. The only solution was to access in forms and override the entry. I had the same problem with line 25 of Schedule C utilities. I entered $312 and program was adding $1,500+ from somewhere. Again, the only solution was to override. Ttax did issue 50% refund but I would rather the program work properly. Hopefully everything else is well. Highly recommend anyone who needs previous year returns, hire an expert.