Free tool

Standard or itemized for 2026?
The rules moved. Recheck.

Three changes landed at once: the SALT cap jumped from $10,000 to $40,400, itemizers picked up a 0.5% charitable floor, and non-itemizers got a cash-only deduction. Enter raw amounts; the cited rules are applied for you, and nothing you type leaves the browser.

The year and the filer

The cap, the floor, and the standard deduction all key off these two. Nothing you type here is uploaded, saved, or sent anywhere.

Tax year

Tax year 2026, generally filed in 2027. Three charitable rules changed for 2026: a deduction of up to $1,000, or $2,000 on a joint return, for cash gifts by people who do not itemize, a 0.5% floor that itemizers' charitable contributions have to clear, and a limit on the tax benefit of itemized deductions at the top of the rate table.

Sets the standard deduction, the SALT cap, and the phase-down threshold. Married filing separately takes half the cap and half the threshold, per the statute.

Used for two things and nothing else: the SALT cap's phase-down for incomes above $505,000 and the 0.5% charitable floor for 2026 itemizers. Leave it blank and both are described rather than applied. It goes nowhere.

The year, in raw amounts

Whole year, all of it. The SALT line is the one field here that wants the amount you PAID rather than the amount you can claim, because applying that cap is this tool's job.

State income or sales tax, plus property tax, as actually paid. This is the raw amount: the tool applies the statutory cap for the selected year for you, and shows what it trimmed.

Generally the interest your lender reports to you, for debt within the limits that apply to your loan. This tool does not test those limits.

Medical costs are generally deductible only above a percentage of adjusted gross income. We do not publish a sourced figure for that floor, so enter only the amount left above it.

Money, checks, card payments, and payroll giving to qualified organizations. Kept separate from goods because the 2026 rule for people who do not itemize is a cash rule.

Fair market value of donated clothing, furniture, and household goods, for the whole year and every organization. The donation calculator builds that figure with a published source on every line.

Anything else you expect to claim on Schedule A. Leave it blank if nothing else applies.

What moved, and who it moves

The state and local tax cap is the quiet one. From 2018 through 2024 it sat at $10,000, and for millions of households that single line decided the whole itemizing question: mortgage interest plus capped SALT plus ordinary giving stopped clearing the standard deduction, so people reasonably stopped itemizing and, just as reasonably, stopped keeping donation records.

For taxable years beginning in 2026 the statute prints the cap at $40,400, half that for married filing separately, phasing down above $505,000 of modified adjusted gross income but never below $10,000. A household paying $18,000 in property and state income taxes just found $8,000 of itemized total it did not have in 2024, and that is before any donation. If the last time you checked the itemizing line was years ago, the answer may have changed while you were not looking, which is precisely what the calculator above is for.

The other two changes cut the opposite way, and honesty requires both. Itemizers lose the first 0.5% of AGI of their charitable giving to the new floor. And the much-covered deduction for non-itemizers, up to $1,000 single or $2,000 joint, is a cash rule: the bag of clothes it is so often advertised with does not qualify. The full rule, with its sources and its hedges.

What this calculator refuses to do

It will not estimate your tax bill or your savings in dollars, because that requires a marginal-rate conversation this page cannot hold honestly in a sidebar; the tax savings calculator exists for exactly that. It applies no medical floor, because we have not published a sourced figure for one, so that field asks for the post-floor amount. And it treats the income you type as modified AGI, which matches AGI for nearly every filer; if foreign-income exclusions are part of your return, this is not your tool. Every figure it does apply carries its source in the reference list below.

Primary sources for the applied figures

  1. 26 U.S.C. § 164, Taxes (see § 164(b)(6) and (b)(7), limitation on individual deductions for state and local taxes)Office of the Law Revision Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives, Statute
  2. Public Law 119-21 (One Big Beautiful Bill Act), enrolled text of H.R. 1, secs. 70111, 70424, 70425U.S. Congress, Statute
  3. Revenue Procedure 2025-32, inflation adjustments for tax year 2026 and the 2025 amounts as amended by Public Law 119-21IRS, IRS guidance
  4. Topic no. 506, Charitable contributionsIRS, IRS guidance
  5. Publication 505 (2026), Tax Withholding and Estimated Tax, What's New, full textIRS, IRS publication
FAQ

The 2026 strategy questions

What is the SALT deduction cap for 2026?
$40,400 for most filing statuses and $20,200 for married filing separately, per 26 U.S.C. section 164(b)(7) as amended by Public Law 119-21. Above $505,000 of modified adjusted gross income ($252,500 MFS) the cap phases down by 30% of the excess, but never below $10,000. These amounts are printed in the statute itself, and the cap returns to $10,000 after 2029.
Why does the SALT cap matter for charitable donations?
Because it moved. From 2018 through 2024 the cap was $10,000, and for many households that single change pushed the itemized total under the standard deduction, which made their donations do nothing federally. With the cap at $40,000 for 2025 and $40,400 for 2026, a household paying real property and income taxes may be back over the line without knowing it, and once itemizing wins again, every documented donation counts again. This calculator shows that headroom from your own numbers.
Does this calculator apply the 0.5% charitable floor?
Yes, when you supply an adjusted gross income, for years that have the floor. The IRS states that beginning in 2026, itemizers deduct only the charitable contributions above 0.5% of AGI. The figure comes from Publication 505 (2026) and is applied as a simple subtraction here; the statute words the base as the contribution base and provides ordering and carryforward rules, so treat the result as an estimate.
Can I deduct donations if the standard deduction wins?
For 2026, only cash, and only up to a cap. The IRS states that a non-itemizer may deduct up to $1,000, or $2,000 on a joint return, of cash contributions to certain qualified organizations. Donated goods do not qualify for that deduction; they generally count only on the itemized path. The calculator shows this on the standard path automatically, using only the cash you entered.
How is this different from the should-I-itemize calculator?
The itemize checker asks for the amounts you can already claim and adds them, applying no cap of its own; it is the right tool when you know your post-cap figures. This one starts from raw amounts and applies the cited rules for you, the statutory SALT cap with its phase-down and the 2026 charitable floor, and then frames the result as a strategy: what is doing the work, and what would flip the answer before December 31.
Does it estimate my tax savings in dollars?
No, deliberately. Converting a deduction into dollars requires your marginal rate, and pretending one number covers that is how calculators mislead. The DeductiBee tax savings calculator holds that conversation properly, showing the chain from donation to deductible amount to an estimated range with the rate assumption stated.
Related tools

The rest of the decision

Before December 31

The gap is only actionable while the year is open

DeductiBee keeps the running annual total that makes this calculator's question answerable in real time: every donation valued from a cited dataset, photographed, and counted toward the line.

DeductiBee on the App StoreFree to start. Raw-data export is free on every tier.