Bad Advice

I recently wrote a missive that said that with the CARES Act, each spouse could claim an ‘above the line,’ i.e. directly deducted from adjusted gross income, tax deduction for a $300 cash gift to a publically supported charity for 2020. I said that a married couple could thus deduct, between them, $600 for cash gifts to charities. That was incorrect. While skimming the Congressional comments to the 2020 tax law changes, I learned that the Joint Committee on Taxation’s Explanation of the CARES Act interprets this tax law change as permitting only one $300 charitable deduction on a jointly filed income tax return for 2020. This one-time-only charitable income deduction applies to the tax filing ‘unit’, not per individual as I had suggested as a response to encourage philanthropy during the pandemic. I apologize for the misinformation that was communicated.