I itemize for deductions. How best to deduct purchased groceries (food & canned items) for a church food pantry? Itemize as cash or non-cash donations?

[DoninGA]

Those are non-cash donations.

[timhay75]

Sorry, a couple of follow-up questions.  Their is no category for food as a non cash item and the donation is weekly.  So are you suggesting we separately itemize every week's purchase & immediate donation to the charity and if so as what specifically?  I was hoping maybe we could list it monthly, or just as a single annual number.

[DoninGA]

For the food donation you only need to enter the total for the year, 2024.

[Opus 17]

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@timhay75 wrote:

Sorry, a couple of follow-up questions.  Their is no category for food as a non cash item and the donation is weekly.  So are you suggesting we separately itemize every week's purchase & immediate donation to the charity and if so as what specifically?  I was hoping maybe we could list it monthly, or just as a single annual number.

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If your total of non-cash donations is more than $500, you must include form 8283 (Turbotax will do this automatically).  Each donation is supposed to be listed separately.  I don't think there would be a serious risk of audit if you combined them, but that's not technically what the rules say.

What will be more important is that you have documentation.  Not just receipts showing the prices of the food items, but some kind of acknowledgement from the food bank that is specific enough that a picky auditor would be able to see that the items on your grocery receipt were in fact donated.