It’s the season for email newsletters hitting your inbox with tips for tax planning. We get it! With so much information flying around, it’s hard to know what’s best. We highly recommend that you cut through the noise and focus on four key tax strategies before late December:

  1. Don’t miss out on the few provisions of the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act that carried over to 2021, including the ability to deduct up to 100% of adjusted gross income (AGI) for cash gifts made directly to qualifying charities and the “universal” charitable deduction of $300 per taxpayer ($600 for a married couple).
  2. Unlike in 2020, when pandemic relief laws offered a tax break, this year you have to take required minimum distributions from your qualified retirement accounts. Especially for those who take the standard deduction, you ought to consider a qualified charitable distribution, which allows eligible individuals to donate up to $100,000 directly from individual retirement accounts to a qualified charity. The Winona Community Foundation is happy to help you identify a qualified charity or structure a qualifying fund to receive a distribution.
  3. “Bundling” or “bunching” multiple gifts into tax year 2021 can help you if you’ve had exceptionally high incomes this year. Donor-advised funds at the Winona Community Foundation are particularly useful in these situations. We’d love to discuss this option!

We know you strive to identify the optimal tax strategies for your charitable giving. As always, please contact us to find out how we can make year-end tax savings as frictionless as possible for you.
The team at the Winona Community Foundation is a resource and sounding board for philanthropy. We understand the charitable side of the equation and are happy to serve as a source. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not intended as legal, accounting, or financial planning advice.