Charitable Deduction Without Itemizing
The new $1,000 and $2,000 rule

What the rule actually says

For decades the charitable deduction belonged to itemizers only. If you took the standard deduction, which is what most filers do, a gift to charity changed your taxes by nothing. The 2025 tax law changed that for 2026 and every year after: a deduction for charitable cash gifts that sits alongside the standard deduction instead of competing with it.

Three things to hold onto. It is cash only: a check, a card, a transfer. It must go to a public charity. And it is permanent law with no expiration date, though the $1,000 and $2,000 caps are fixed and will not rise with inflation.

What counts, and what does not

• Counts: cash gifts to public charities, the kind described in section 170(b)(1)(A) of the code. NYC Honor Foundation is one of them: a 501(c)(3) public charity, EIN 42-1836369, recognized by the IRS effective March 27, 2026. Its IRS classification, 509(a)(2), is not one of the excluded categories below.
• Does not count: gifts to donor advised funds. The statute excludes them by name. If you give through a DAF, that giving cannot claim this deduction.
• Does not count: gifts to 509(a)(3) supporting organizations.
• Does not count: stock, property, clothing, or anything that is not cash. Appreciated stock has its own, often better, tax treatment, but it belongs to the itemized system, not to this rule.

One more boundary: this deduction is for people on the standard deduction. If you itemize, your charitable gifts run through the itemized rules instead, including the new half percent floor that applies there.

The New York catch

This deduction reduces your federal taxable income after adjusted gross income is computed, alongside the standard deduction. New York starts its own tax math from federal adjusted gross income, so this deduction never reaches the New York return. Its value is federal only. For a New York City resident in a middle bracket, that is still real money on a $1,000 gift, just less than a naive federal-plus-state estimate would suggest.

New York does have its own wrinkle worth knowing: the state lets you itemize on the New York return even while taking the federal standard deduction. Whether the same cash gift can claim this new federal deduction and also ride the New York itemized line is not something state guidance has settled, and this page will not pretend it has. If that combination matters to your numbers, ask a tax professional.

Where the numbers come from

The $1,000 and $2,000 caps, the cash-only requirement, and the exclusion of donor advised funds and supporting organizations come from Internal Revenue Code section 170(p), added by Public Law 119-21, section 70424. The placement alongside the standard deduction comes from section 63(b)(4). The IRS has not yet published guidance for tax year 2026 on charitable contributions; Publication 526 currently covers 2025 only, so this page cites the statute directly.

This is education, not advice

NYC Honor Foundation is a charity, not a tax or investment advisory firm. Tax outcomes depend on facts this page never sees. Talk to your own tax professional before acting on any of it.

If you want to see what your own giving looks like under the full 2026 rules, including bunching, IRA gifts after 70½, and appreciated stock, the charitable deduction calculator runs all of it on your numbers, free.