Both a No and a Yes....but probably a no in the way you mean it.
You must attempt to use the donation, and actually enter it as such in the year it was donated. You cannot choose to use it in a later year. SO to sue it you would likely have to amend your 2016 tax return, and then it would still only be possible to use it if you were already using itemized deductions that year, or the added donation bumped you above the Std Ded (if you used the Std Ded that year)
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A "kind-of" exception (but probably not your case).......IF you itemized, and entered that donation with all your donations for 2016...and your total cash donations were greater than 50% of your AGI for 2016, then you could carry-over just the excess to 2017. Likewise 2017-to-2018. But you had to enter them each year, and let the calculation be done that calculated the exact $$ amount allowed to be carried over to the subsequent year...where it had to be attempted to be used again...before seeing if any carried over to the next year. IF some of it was a Capital Gain property, Land, Conservation property, or item donation, or donation to certain Fraternal organizations, then sometimes lower % of AGI are used for some of that year's donation limits.......so complex normal humans can't deal with it...but the software does, if you transfer your data within the program from one year to the next.
____________*Answers are correct to the best of my knowledge when posted, but should not be considered to be legal or official tax advice.*
