Charitable Carryover

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
February 19, 2020
1 reply
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In previous years I took a standard deduction, so can I fill in charitable donations from those years as part of an itemized deduction this year?

KarenJ2

Level 13

Unfortunately you cannot deduct contributions from a prior year. If you are a US citizen or resident, you can only deduct contributions made to qualified organizations during the tax year.

Charitable Contribution Deductions

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Zill19

Level 2

So what is the point of a Charitable Carryover? I also took the standard deduction in 16, 17 & 18. So I never used my Charitable Deduction for those years. If you can't make a contribution for a previous year this year, then shouldn't a non-used deduction from the previous year be used as a Carryover for this year? Otherwise, what would a Carryover be?

JohnW152

Level 15

The amount of a contribution that a taxpayer can deduct when itemizing in a year is generally limited to a percentage of their adjusted gross income, but may be further reduced in certain situations.

In this case, the taxpayer is allowed to carry over any unused contribution amounts to subsequent years when they itemize deductions.

Please see Limits on page 14 of IRS Publication 526, Charitable Contributions for more information.

The law doesn't allow you to amass contribution amounts in years that you claim the standard deduction, and then use contributions from multiple years once on a single year's itemized deduction schedule.