Charitable Bunching Calculator: the facts

1. A charitable gift reduces tax only if you itemize, and you itemize only if your deductions beat the standard deduction: $32,200 joint, $16,100 single for 2026. Most retirees who give steadily do not clear it, so their gifts save nothing.
2. From 2026, itemizers deduct only the part of their gifts over 0.5% of adjusted gross income (§ 170(b)(1)(I)), and non-itemizers may deduct up to $1,000 single or $2,000 joint of cash gifts to public charities (§ 170(p)).
3. State and local taxes are deductible up to $40,400 in 2026, reduced by 30 percent of income over $505,000 down to a floor of $10,000 (§ 164(b)(7)); the cap rises 1 percent a year through 2029.
4. Bunching means giving several years' gifts at once, usually into a donor-advised fund that pays them out on the old schedule, so one year clears the standard deduction by a wide margin and the others take the standard deduction anyway.
5. Example: a couple with $200,000 of income, $12,000 of state and local taxes, and $15,000 of yearly gifts. Given yearly they never itemize; two years of gifts at once itemizes $41,000 in the gift year, and the pair of years saves $1,056.
6. The floor is applied once per year of giving, so bunching also shrinks it: two years of gifts pay one year's floor. For a top-bracket filer the value of every itemized deduction is capped at 35 cents on the dollar (§ 68).

Educational only, not investment, tax, or legal advice. Results are hypothetical estimates that vary with each use and over time and are not guaranteed accurate or complete. Using this tool creates no client relationship with Considerate Capital, and the site that linked here is not affiliated with it. By using it you agree to the tool terms.