Why is TurboTax limiting securities donations to 20% of AGI

[Klondiker]

I initially entered several donations of appreciated securities using ItsDeductible. Somehow TT thinks that all these donations are in the 20% limit category but they should be 30% limit. HOW DO I CHANGE THAT? And, by the way it took me an hour to find how to enter a NEW QUESTION here.

[GeorgeM777 · Accepted solution]

You are correct in that the deduction for contributions of appreciated securities is limited to 30% of adjusted gross income (AGI).  However, in the case of donations of appreciated securities made to a private foundation, such donations are limited to 20% of your AGI. If your donation exceeds the AGI limits, the excess charitable deduction can be carried forward for up to five years.

To modify your donation limitation to reflect a 30% AGI limit is to go back to the page where you were asked whether you had an ItsDeductible account.  Select No rather than Yes.  Selecting No will give you the option to enter your stock information, such as date purchased, cost basis, and value.  Handling the transaction this way should result in your ability to claim the 30% limitation of AGI assuming you have satisfied the requirements for donation of appreciated securities. 

Here is a link to a TurboTax article that discusses the process described above.

How to Enter Charitable Donations into TurboTax

@Klondiker

[Klondiker]

That fixed it! Don't use ItsDeductible if you have stock donations! But just re-answering the question about whether I used ItsDeductible didn't fix the problem, that's only the first step. Then delete any stock donations and delete the organizations to which you gave stock. Re-enter the stock donations. Some of my donations were CALL options, which I entered as follows "SYMmm-dd-yy$XXcall, 100". SYM is the ticker symbol, mm-dd-yy is the expiration date, XX is the strike price of the call, and 100 is the number of shares associated with your call options. BTW, the forum gave an error when I tried to mark the post as the best answer.