CARES Act charitable donation with standard deduction

[AP35]

That worked! Thank you so much @ReneeM7122!!

[ReneeM7122]

You are welcome @AP35!

[Gregoire]

My issue is that when we filed my wife's return (MFS) we entered 1/2 of our charitable donation for the year (way over $300) and it gave her the $300 donation on line 10b, as it should.  However, when I do exactly the same thing on my MFS return, it limits my 10b amount to $150 and doesn't show up in an error check.  Thoughts?

[Neepohos]

Short version.  Verify that your charitable donations section is completely blank and didn't autofill from other years/areas, or that your totals match it.  Itemize your charitable donations, even if you're taking the standard deduction, and then use that total, or $300, whichever is less.

Longer Explanation
I spent some time on the phone with a Turbotax employee before I figured this out.  My issue was I had charitable donations that were itemized automatically from my 2019 state return ($17, it was a tiny return so we just donated all of it).  When the system itemized these automatically I didn't know because I honestly had forgotten about them and knew I hadn't made sufficient charitable donations to matter above the standard deduction.  I never opened that section this year at all.  When the special CARES question about charitable donations came I did mark down the charitable donations I had an easy way to track from an online source, which was around $125.  So I entered that.  I then kept getting the error message saying that was too large.  However when we blanked the box completely and came back to look at it the number 17 kept appearing.  Finally when I went to look at itemized charity donations it had the donations from my state returns last year.  That explained the random 17 that kept showing up.  When I added my other 125 to it as an itemized donation and closed it I still got an error saying the line wasn't right.  However this time I added the appropriate total (142) and that solved the problem.

[pokerholm]

I realized that TurboTax Premier did not import my charitable contributions from ItsDeductible. The bug in TurboTax seems to be within the buckets it asks you've donated in. I had selected "1-1600" so TurboTax was able to calculate that I need the standard deduction, but it was not able to fill out the 1040 correctly.

I had to do a search for "itsdeductible" to get into the question by question section and find the option to import my data. Once I did that, i ran the error check and got an error on 10b, not the line to the left. I entered $300 there and it finally (after an hour of this nonsense) accepted my taxes.

[eugene maxwell]

as i understand the info on instructions for fed 1040...i had  a 1500.00 actual donation to charity...whaat is the amount that will be calculated for 10B  

[ReneeM7122]

Previously, charitable contributions could only be deducted if taxpayers itemized on their tax returns.   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.

[cyacklon]

I was helping my Mom with her taxes. It was a joint return Turbo Tax Deluxe. The Charitable deduction screen ask how much of the $300.00 was hers so since she pays all of it but its on there joint income. My concern is we completed and submitted but now she reads in the news paper its $300 per person, so $600 for 2 people. I did not see how to add $300 for both. Please comment.

[DoninGA]

---

@cyacklon wrote:
I was helping my Mom with her taxes. It was a joint return Turbo Tax Deluxe. The Charitable deduction screen ask how much of the $300.00 was hers so since she pays all of it but its on there joint income. My concern is we completed and submitted but now she reads in the news paper its $300 per person, so $600 for 2 people. I did not see how to add $300 for both. Please comment.

---

The maximum cash donation is $300 for tax year 2020.

Go to the IRS Form 1040 Instructions (2020) for Line 10b on page 29 -  https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040gi.pdf#page=29

Line 10b
If you don't itemize deductions on Schedule A (Form 1040), you (or you and your spouse if filing jointly) may be able to take a charitable deduction for cash contributions made in 2020.
Enter the total amount of your contributions on line 10b. Don't enter more than:
• $300 if single, head of household,
or qualifying widow(er);
• $300 if married filing jointly; or
• $150 if married filing separately.

[TammyJane2]

this $300 charitable donation simply does not work in TurboxTax.  Even if you follow the advice above, and actually get around the error message telling you the amount is too big, it does NOT make any adjustment to your tax due.  Thus I conclude, it is indeed a bug.

[DaveF1006]

It depends. If you have entered any amount in charitable contributions in the deductions and credits section, remove those, unless you are able to itemize deductions. If you are able to itemize deductions, that $300 will not make a difference because that can only be claimed if you take a standard deduction and must be removed.

[Edited 04-07-2021|03:17 PM PST]

[lilschneezey]

I am in the "this is a bug" camp.

I've gone through the steps of outlined in many of the responses below. It is like waving chicken bones over the computer in a voodoo ritual. First time in years Turbotax does not give me confidence.

In my case, Turbotax waffles between standard deduction and itemized deduction, because the potential of the $300 charitable gift donation on top of the standard deduction would be more than itemizing.  But it won't take me through the interview to put the $300 down on the 1040 on line 10b, no matter what I do.

My workaround: enter the value manually, print out the 1040, and review for accuracy.