Q. Hi, Dan. I don’t understand why people are talking about the new deduction for charitable gifts next year. Haven’t charitable gifts always been deductible? — Carl in Rockledge

A. Carl, for millions of Americans, Starting in 2026, the new deduction is getting a lot of publicity because it will enable the estimated 90% of households that use the standard deduction to get a deduction for donations to charity. I’ll give you an example.

First, we must tally up the expenses we could itemize. These expenses are listed on Schedule A of Form 1040. The basic list of such expenses are certain out of pocket medical and dental expenses; state and local taxes; home mortgage interest; charitable contributions; casualty and theft losses from a federally declared disaster; gambling losses to the ext

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