If we make charitable donations in 2018 that qualify for 2018 Arizona income tax credits, how/when are these entered in our 2018 Federal return?

[mesquitebean]

 I'll see if I can get someone familiar with Arizona to comment on how to enter those donations so they show up as state tax credits on your AZ state return.

@ Rainman12  Are you please able to assist here when you are next in the community forum?   Thanks!

[Rainman12]

Enter Only in the AZ interview section. Starting with 2018 returns, you can generally not claim both IRS and AZ benefits from the same donation. Ergo, you have to ignore the donation for Federal purposes.

[Anonymous]

There are some recent articles by IRS saying that you can treat the part of the charitable contribution that is excluded as a fed Decuction (i.e that part that is a tax credit for AZ) as a "payment" of AZ taxes. However, I dont see any way to do this within Turbo tax.  Here are some links to IRS, don't confuse tax deduction from credit so the top part of this article about dollar for dollar doesn't apply to credits. But it does go on to say:

https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/final-regulations-on-charitable-contributions-and-state-and-local-tax-c...  

"providing a safe harbor that allows an individual who itemizes deductions to treat, in certain circumstances, payments that are or will be disallowed as charitable contribution deductions under the final regulations as state or local taxes for federal income tax purposes. Eligible taxpayers can use the safe harbor to determine their state and local tax (SALT) deduction on their tax-year 2018 return. Those who have already filed may be able to claim a greater SALT deduction by filing an amended return, Form 1040-X, if they have not already claimed the $10,000 maximum amount ($5,000 if married filing separately)."

This link has some example situations: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-19-12.pdf