The holiday season is a perfect opportunity to plan your and maximize your charitable contributions. Many organizations have a year-end campaign to raise funds, and it’s always meaningful to be generous around the holidays. Make sure to keep track of your contributions to help when it comes time to file your income tax return in the spring. While we shouldn’t give simply for the tax benefit, it’s certainly a nice perk of our generosity. Be aware of the organizations that you’re gifting funds to around the holiday season. We live in a society with countless scams, and unfortunately those pick up significantly at this time of the year. It may also make sense to make shift some contributions from one tax year to another in order to maximize the deduction received for those contributions. For example, a taxpayer may choose to make their January 2024 contribution in December 2023 to increase the deduction received on their 2023 tax return. This can be a useful strategy for taxpayers who expect a significant income change from one year to the next.
