Charitable Giving in 2026: The New Tax Rules for Give to the Max Day and Giving Tuesday

November and December tend to be a season of giving. With Give to the Max Day coming up on November 19th, and Giving Tuesday on December 1st, it’s a good time to talk about the tax impact of charitable contributions. This is the first giving season under the new charitable rules from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), and they change the math for almost everyone.

The short version: if you take the standard deduction, you finally get a federal tax benefit for giving cash to charity. If you itemize, you face a new floor that makes small, steady annual giving less valuable and makes planning more valuable.

Let me say this up front, because it’s true: give because you care about the cause. The tax benefit is a bonus, not the reason. But if you’re giving anyway, a little planning can let you give more for the same out-of-pocket cost.

As always, this is general information and hasn’t been customized for your situation. If you’d like help planning your giving, feel free to schedule a consultation.

If You Take the Standard Deduction: A New Federal Deduction

Most people don’t itemize. For 2026, the standard deduction is $16,100 for single filers and $32,200 for married couples filing jointly, and your itemized deductions have to exceed those amounts before itemizing helps. For years, that meant most donors got no federal tax benefit for giving at all.

Starting in 2026, that changes. If you take the standard deduction, you can also deduct cash gifts to charity:

Up to $1,000 for single filers
Up to $2,000 for married couples filing jointly

This deduction is in addition to your standard deduction. It isn’t indexed for inflation, so those amounts will stay put unless Congress changes them, and it doesn’t expire.

The fine print matters here:

Cash only. Checks, credit cards, and online gifts count. Donated clothing, household goods, or stock don’t.
Public charities only. Your church, food shelf, school, or the nonprofits on Give to the Max Day generally qualify. Gifts to donor-advised funds and private non-operating foundations don’t.
It reduces your taxable income, not your AGI. This is a technical point, but it matters. The deduction is taken alongside the standard deduction, after your adjusted gross income is calculated. So it lowers your tax, but it doesn’t lower the AGI number that drives things like Social Security taxability or Medicare premiums. (Some early coverage, including some of my own, described this as an “above-the-line” deduction. The final structure puts it below the line.)

Let’s say Dan and Rachel, a married couple who take the standard deduction, give $150 a month to their church and $500 to a few organizations on Give to the Max Day, $2,300 in cash for the year. They can deduct $2,000 on top of their $32,200 standard deduction. In the 12% bracket, that’s $240 of federal tax savings they wouldn’t have had in 2025.

If You Itemize: A New Floor and a Cap

If your itemized deductions exceed the standard deduction (and the higher SALT cap has pushed more Minnesotans into that group), two changes apply for 2026.

The 0.5% Floor

You can now only deduct charitable gifts to the extent they exceed 0.5% of your AGI. The first slice of your giving each year produces no deduction.

For example, if your AGI is $200,000, the floor is $1,000. If you give $6,000, only $5,000 is deductible. If you give $900, none of it is deductible as an itemized deduction.

The 35% Cap for the Top Bracket

If you’re in the 37% bracket, the tax benefit of your itemized deductions, including charitable gifts, is now capped as if you were in the 35% bracket. A $10,000 gift saves you about $3,500 in federal tax instead of $3,700. That’s a modest change, but worth knowing if you’re planning a large gift.

What Didn’t Change

The limit on cash gifts to public charities stays at 60% of AGI, now made permanent. Gifts of appreciated stock are still generally limited to 30% of AGI. Anything over the limits carries forward for five years.

Strategies That Make More Sense Under the New Rules

Bunching: Now More Valuable Than Ever

The 0.5% floor and the high standard deduction both work against steady annual giving. Bunching, which means concentrating two or three years of giving into a single year, helps you clear both hurdles at once: you itemize in the bunching year and take the standard deduction (plus the new cash deduction) in the off years.

Let’s say Mark and Julie have $150,000 of AGI, $26,000 of other itemized deductions (property taxes, state income tax, and mortgage interest), and give $8,000 a year to charity.

Giving every year: $26,000 + $8,000 − $750 floor = $33,250 of itemized deductions, barely above the $32,200 standard deduction. The giving is worth only about $1,050 more in deductions than they’d get anyway.
Bunching three years into 2026: $26,000 + $24,000 − $750 = $49,250 of itemized deductions in 2026, which is $17,050 above the standard deduction. In 2027 and 2028, they take the standard deduction, and any cash they give directly to public charities in those years can still use the $2,000 non-itemizer deduction.

Donor-Advised Funds: The Bunching Tool

A donor-advised fund (DAF) makes bunching practical. You contribute a large amount in one year and take the deduction (if you itemize), then recommend grants to your favorite charities over the following years. Your church and nonprofits still get steady support; you just front-load the tax deduction.

Two cautions. First, DAF contributions don’t qualify for the new $1,000/$2,000 non-itemizer deduction. They only help if you itemize in the year you contribute. Second, a DAF contribution is irrevocable. Once it’s in, the money has to go to charity eventually.

Appreciated Stock

If you’ve held stock or mutual funds for more than a year and they’ve gone up in value, giving the shares directly to a charity (or a DAF) lets you deduct the full market value and never pay capital gains tax on the growth. Let’s say you bought shares for $4,000 that are now worth $10,000. Donate the shares and you can deduct $10,000 (if you itemize) and avoid tax on the $6,000 gain. Sell them first and you’d owe tax on that gain before giving the cash.

Note that non-cash gifts like stock don’t count toward the new non-itemizer deduction, so this strategy works best in a year you itemize, often a bunching year.

QCDs for Retirees 70½ and Older

If you’re 70½ or older, a qualified charitable distribution from your IRA is often the best option of all. The gift goes directly from your IRA to the charity, up to $111,000 in 2026, and is excluded from your income entirely. It doesn’t require itemizing, it isn’t subject to the 0.5% floor, and once you reach RMD age it counts toward your required distribution. Because it keeps the money out of your AGI, it can do more than the non-itemizer deduction can.

The details, including which charities qualify (DAFs don’t) and the timing mistakes to avoid, are in my post on required minimum distributions and QCDs.

Minnesota: How the State Fits In

Minnesota has its own rules, and they work independently of the federal ones.

Minnesota’s income tax starts from your federal adjusted gross income. Because the new federal $1,000/$2,000 deduction is taken after AGI, it doesn’t carry over to your Minnesota return. Instead, Minnesota gives every donor its own charitable benefit, one way or the other.

If you itemize on your Minnesota return (Schedule M1SA), charitable gifts are deductible to the extent they exceed 1% of your federal AGI, a higher floor than the new federal 0.5%. You can itemize on your Minnesota return even if you take the standard deduction federally, and Minnesota’s standard deduction for 2026 is lower than the federal one: $15,300 for single filers and $30,600 for married couples filing jointly. Minnesota also follows the federal 60% of AGI limit for cash gifts.

If you don’t itemize on your Minnesota return, you can still claim a charitable subtraction on Schedule M1M if you gave more than $500. For 2026, it’s calculated as:

Your total charitable gifts
Minus 1% of your AGI
Minus $500
Times 50%

Let’s say Dan and Rachel from the earlier example have $100,000 of AGI. With their $2,300 of 2026 gifts, their Minnesota subtraction is $2,300 − $1,000 − $500 = $800, times 50%, or $400. That’s on top of the federal deduction they get for the same gifts, so the same generosity counts on both returns.

One more Minnesota point: because a QCD never enters your federal AGI, it stays out of your Minnesota income too, with no floor and no 50% haircut.

Timing and Documentation

To count for 2026, the gift has to be made by December 31. For timing purposes:

Credit card gifts count when charged, even if you pay the card bill in January.
Checks count when mailed (postmarked), as long as they clear.
Online gifts, including Give to the Max Day gifts through GiveMN, count on the transaction date.
Stock gifts count when the shares arrive in the charity’s account, which can take several days. Start early.

Keep the right records:

Any cash gift: a bank record (canceled check, card statement) or a written receipt from the charity. This applies to the new non-itemizer deduction too.
$250 or more in a single gift: a written acknowledgment from the charity, dated before you file, stating the amount and whether you received anything in return.
Non-cash gifts over $500: Form 8283 with your return.
Non-cash gifts over $5,000: a qualified appraisal in most cases (publicly traded stock is an exception).

GiveMN emails a receipt for Give to the Max Day gifts. Save it with your tax documents.

Which Approach Fits You?

You give less than $1,000–$2,000 a year in cash and don’t itemize. Give directly to the charities you care about and claim the new federal deduction. If your giving is large enough to clear 1% of your AGI plus $500, Minnesota’s subtraction adds a little more. No complex strategy needed.

You give several thousand a year and you’re near the itemizing line. Look hard at bunching, possibly through a donor-advised fund, so you get a meaningful deduction every two or three years instead of a small or nonexistent one every year.

You’re 70½ or older with an IRA. Consider QCDs for at least part of your giving. They often beat every other option.

You itemize comfortably every year. Factor in the 0.5% floor (and Minnesota’s 1% floor), consider giving appreciated stock instead of cash, and if you’re in the top bracket, account for the 35% cap.

Where to Learn More

If you prefer video, my Tax Tuesday episode on the 2026 charitable contribution changes covers the highlights.

The Bottom Line

The 2026 rules are good news for everyday donors who don’t itemize, and they reward planning for those who do. Whether you’re giving $50 on Give to the Max Day or setting up a multi-year giving plan, it’s worth knowing which category you’re in before December 31.

If you’re weighing a larger gift, a donor-advised fund, or a bunching strategy, reach out or schedule a consultation. We can look at your numbers and figure out the approach that lets your generosity go furthest.

The information in this post is general in nature and hasn’t been customized for your specific tax situation. Charitable deduction rules depend on whether you itemize, your income, the type of gift, and the type of organization. For personalized advice regarding your charitable giving, please schedule a consultation.