Donations to Charity through a Donor Advised Fund

[michaelklos23]

Hello all,

I created a Donor Advised Fund through my financial advisor in 2021. I am trying to figure out how to list this donation, and another, in TurboTax.

1.) Is it simply listing the cash amount to the Donor Advised Fund on Turbotax as a money deduction in the deductions and credits section?

2.) From that cash amount, I chose to grant about $2000 to the Boys and Girls Club of my city. That was a cash amount from the donor-advised fund, however, in my fund details, I see there are divestment instructions and asset allocations. Do I have to put that I donated stock to the Boys and Girls Club, or the $2000?

3.) Donating to specific charities as BGC comes with a child care contribution credit. Am I still eligible for this credit? It seems like that only applies to cash contributions. My financial advisor, who has no TurboTax knowledge, said this was possible, but I am not sure when navigating the program.

Thank you

[SteamTrain]

1)  The money you put in the Donor advised fund is the only thing you put on your personal tax return. Who it went to afterward has little to nothing to do with yoru personal tax return.

2)  Who actually runs the Donor advised fund?  Is it something you created and run all on your own? 

IF it's something you run all on your own (and not a sub-account thru somebody else's pre-established Donor fund, like a sub-account within the Fidelity Charitable gift fund), then you REALLY need local professional help on that.  If it's ALL your own DAV, then anything that happens within the fund must be reported entirely separately from your individual tax return, and on tax forms TTX probably does not even have...like a form 990?

3)  No, money dispersed from a Donor Advised fund does not enable you to take any personal tax credits or deductions on your personal tax return......you already received a deduction for the $$ you put into the Fund......what happens to the $$ that leave the fund are recorded by whoever is running the Fund, and posted somehow on whatever forms the Fund is required to generate and submit every year to the Govt  (Form 990)....but these are not on your personal tax records.

______________________

 A form 990 "might" be available in some of the Pro-series versions....but those are only run by actual tax pro's and is not covered by discussions in this community.

[michaelklos23]

Thanks for your quick answer. The donor-advised fund is run through Franklin Templeton.

Answer #3 is upsetting, especially since we were led to believe from our financial advisor that we would be eligible for credits, and that is not the case.

Thanks again.

[SteamTrain]

Hey, I could be wrong about #3....That kind of thing sounds beyond what any state would accept, unless their state laws specifically allow that credit if the $$ came from a DAV, and you'd really have to find an actual tax professional in whatever state you live in to confirm it.   Certainly it's not a Fedeal credit.

But thank goodness it is just a sub account at another DAV....the way you were talking about it, it sounded like you had created your very own DAV somehow......and the nightmare of recordkeeping that goes along with it.

[Mike9241]

Contributions to Donor-Advised Funds IRS PUB 526
You can't deduct a contribution to a donor-advised fund if:
• You don't have an acknowledgment from that sponsoring organization that it has exclusive legal control over the assets contributed. There are also other circumstances in which you can't deduct your contribution to a donor-advised fund. Generally, a donor-advised fund is a fund or account in which a donor can, because of being a donor, advise the fund how to distribute or invest amounts held in the fund. For details, see
Internal Revenue Code section 170(f)(18)

we can't see the documents you signed or got, so additional clarification would have to come from your advisor.