2020 Turbotax Deluxe charitable donations CARES ACT

[Reebs · Accepted solution]

It seems to be working although not the way I would have thought.  Apparently  with each donation you can choose whether you want it classified as a 100% type charity or a 50% charity.  The IRS rules give you that flexibility.  The Turbo tax default previously was 50% and now is 100% if you answer the Donation Limits question as "No".  When Turbotax ask the Donations Limits question "Were any of your donations to ... a 30% charity", if you answer "Yes", you can choose how to classify each charity whether a 50% or 100%.

[ReneeM7122]

The issue is corrected .  It occurs as a result of  a new provision in the CARES Act.   Previously, charitable contributions could only be deducted if taxpayers itemized their deductions. However, taxpayers who don't itemize deductions may take a charitable deduction of up to $300 for cash contributions made in 2020 to qualifying organizations. For the purposes of this deduction, qualifying organizations are those that are religious, charitable, educational, scientific or literary in purpose. The law changed in this area due to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.

When you are itemizing, the workaround is to make the software stop treating you as an itemizer, which it must in order to get this $300 credit for you.  Here's what to do:

1. Delete the amoujnt in the error check.
2. Then go back to Deductions & Credits and enter the contribution there, in the Donations to Charity topic.
3. Then click Done with Donations and proceed through the screens until you get to the screen that tells you that TurboTax has added in the contribution.

 The contribution will be back on Form 1040 line 10b, but it won't be flagged as an error. It only gets flagged if you enter it when prompted after you finish Deductions & Credits and the software tells you that you are getting the standard deduction. It will not get flagged if you enter it in Donations to Charity.

@mea3

[dd7757]

Have you had any success in getting Turbo Tax I T to  address the Cares Act. Related issues. 
My issue is that if you select the 30 percent charity limitation for a particular charity , the system thereafter defaults to 100 percent  erroneously overstating the entitled deduction triggering an IRS audit.

The Care Act has been extant since March , 2020 and Intuit has not figured it out. 

[dd7757]

If you elect a charity with a 30 percent limitation and select that tab. Guess what . The software defaults to 100 percent and puts you in position of inflating the deduction to which you are entitled inviting an IRS audit 

[cls123]

UPDATE TO YESTERDAYS POST WHICH FOLLOWS THIS UPDATE.  I did a little more looking on this web site and found a comment that if you selected a specific contribution, that you could go to the "forms" button in the upper left of the screen and specify that the particular contribution should be a 100% deduction.  I tried this and it worked perfectly.  So I was able to select which contributions that I wanted to be 100% so I could therefore get the maximum contribution to get the greatest refund.   Previous post -  After I posted this issue I contacted the IRS to see what gives and bottom line they did not their act yet (see IRS pub 256) and their only suggestions were to wait or to file and then later file an amended return.  I check and it appears that the pub has been appropriately update but when I open my return in Turbotax it does not change anything so I think I am going to have to start from scratch and re-input everything.  In doing this it does appear from earlier posts that I can specify each individual donation as a 100% if I want to as I enter it, but I had wanted to donwload my donations form  my Quicken account and in doing that I dont think Turbo tax will let me classify specific ones to be 50% or 100%.  Oh well i guess I will load each one individually.  I think from reading earlier posts that I will be able to specify how I want each one.

[mea3]

TO ReneeM7122,

Thank you. Your suggestion worked and the $300 dollars donation amount showed up on 1040, line b.

I did not use the cloud version of turbo, but  installed the CD on laptop.