Mutual fund donations to a charitable fund- how to enter correctly?

[alison708]

I am trying to enter no cash contributions of mutual funds that were donated directly to a charitable fund I opened last year.

[Cindy0H · Accepted solution]

Mutual Fund donations will be entered in the Charitable Donations section.

This is how:

• Federal
• Deductions & Credits
• Charitable Donations
• Donations to Charity in 2018
• There is a line for stock

[nancyvella429]

What option should be used for method used to determine fair market value?   Why no option for Treasury Regulation #20.2031-2?

[Jon-the-taxpayer]

Turbotax charitable donations interview and form seems severely lacking.  Yes, there is a choice of "stock" but there are other items, quoting from the IRS form, "Also list publically traded securities and certain other propertyeven if the deduction is more than $5,000."  This is also where one would enter donation of a vehicle, but Turbotax is not flexible enough to allow it.

I needed to list mutual funds donated to a donor advised fund.  What I did was chose stock in Turbotax and where it asked me for the "Stock symbolor ticker, number of shares" I entered "Mutual Fund VFIAX, 123.451."  

Turbotax also does not allow any antry for choice of method to determine the fair market value.  I wish I could have entered "Treasury Regulation #20.2031-2" as provided by my donor advised fund.  However, I had to choose the non-changable Turbotax default, "Comparative sales."

Turbotax, you could easily fix this if you wanted to.

[sfsteve]

I have the same issue, having donated mutual fund shares to my donor advised charitable gift fund. There is no way to enter the market valuation method as "Treasury Regulation #20.2031-2", which is on the Form 8283 provided to me by Fidelity Charitable. None of the methods on the TurboTax pick list are appropriate for this. In the past, I had been able to enter the "Treasury Regulation citation. 

[Cynthiad66]

There is an issue with the contributions deduction and TurboTax is working to fix it.  We do not have an estimated date of correction, at this time.  I suggest you check back often to see if the correction has been made.

There is a problem with the Contributions section of the Itemized deductions and also the above the line $300.00 deduction.  Because of the many changes due to the CARES Act, IRS is still developing the forms and publications on this issue.  Last update was January 13th where everything is still in draft.  Once IRS finalizes the forms, we will be able to update TurboTax to accurately reflect your Contributions deduction.

Here are some of the changes due to the CARES ACT

The new legislation allows tax deductions on two types of charitable gifts. First, it allows up to $300 given to a qualified charity to be claimed as an above-the-line deduction. After the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which went into effect in 2018, increased the standard deduction, many taxpayers had less incentive to donate to charities. Instead, they took the standard deduction and stopped itemizing.

For taxpayers who will itemize deductions, the CARES Act effectively suspends the limit on deductions for cash contributions to public charities for 2020.  “That allows individuals to completely wipe out their AGI, and their tax liability, with a charitable contribution.

[crazynotlazy]

I am having the same problem.  Just opened up a DAF last year, and am not able to enter any of the contributions, at least in the "stock" section, since it keeps asking me for "when acquired" and "cost basis", which I can't find on any forms from Fidelity.   Is there a fix yet?   Or a workaround?  (e.g. should we just call the contribution a "cash" donation, with the fair market value used as the value?)  Please help, I have no idea what to do at this point.

[Jon-the-taxpayer]

Turbotax has not fixed this to my knowledge.  For date aquired, you can enter "various" into Turbotax.  For the cost basis, even though it is not used for any tax calculations, you can find the tax basis on your monthly Fidelity brokerage account (not Fidelity Charitable) statements.  In the month you funded your donor advised fund, the statement will show the shares of each fund donated.  I think you will have to go to the previous month's statement to get the total cost basis for all of your shares, calculate an average cost basis per share, and then multiply the cost per share times the number of shares donated to get the total cost basis. 

Good for you for using a donor advised fund to contribute in a tax efficient manner to your favorite charities.  I think a DAF is a very wise choice, especially since standard deductions for income tax are so high these days.

Good luck!!!

[crazynotlazy]

Thank you for quick response.  Hope they will fix Turbo Tax soon because this is a little clunky way to do it, but at least it gives me a way to proceed.  Thanks so much for the detailed instructions!