Charitable Bunching Calculator

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act roughly doubled the standard deduction in 2018, and the share of taxpayers who itemise fell from about thirty percent to under ten. For the great majority, charitable giving now produces no itemised deduction at all — not because the deduction was repealed, but because their total deductions never clear the standard deduction.

Bunching is the response. Instead of giving the same amount every year and never clearing the hurdle, you concentrate several years of giving into one, clear it comfortably in that year, and take the standard deduction in the others. The charities receive the same money over the same period. Only the timing changes.

It works precisely when your other itemised deductions — state and local tax, mortgage interest, medical — fall somewhere near but below the standard deduction on their own. If they are far below, even bunched giving will not clear it. If they are already well above, you itemise every year regardless and bunching adds little.

From 2026 itemizers lose the benefit of the first half percentage point of AGI worth of charitable giving. On $180,000 of AGI that is $900 of giving each year that produces nothing.

The crucial detail is that the floor is charged per year in which you give, not per dollar given. Someone giving every year for three years surrenders three floors. Someone giving the same total in a single year surrenders one. On these figures that alone is $1,800 of extra deduction, before any effect from clearing the standard deduction.

This is a genuinely new argument. Through 2025 the case for bunching rested entirely on the standard deduction hurdle; from 2026 the floor adds a second, independent reason that applies even to people who itemise every year anyway.

The obvious objection to bunching is that charities relying on a steady annual gift would receive three years of money and then nothing twice. A donor-advised fund resolves it: you contribute the bunched amount and take the deduction in that year, then recommend grants to your chosen charities on the same schedule as before. From the charity's side nothing changes.

Contributing appreciated stock held more than a year rather than cash strengthens it further — you deduct the full market value and never pay capital gains tax on the appreciation. The AGI ceiling for appreciated property is 30% rather than 60%, which matters only for large gifts.

Two things a donor-advised fund does not solve. The contribution is irrevocable, so money placed there can never come back even if your circumstances change. And it is not a qualifying recipient for a qualified charitable distribution, so anyone over 70½ giving from an IRA cannot combine the two — for them a direct QCD is usually the better instrument anyway, since it reduces AGI rather than merely taxable income.