Compare annual giving, charitable bunching and DAF funding with cash or appreciated securities. Inspect federal deductions, carryovers and modeled donor cost.
Compare giving dates and cash/securities mixes under a finite federal ordinary-income model. Verified tax tables cover 2025–2026; later years are acknowledged projections. Binding 2026 mixed-limit cases are blocked, and the floor/carry interpretation requires tax review.
Load the labeled example or start blank. Enter one to five annual giving targets, dates, ordinary-income AGI and other deductions. Edit later tax years to track carryovers.
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Enter available cash and securities
Enter cash available for new gifts and one public-securities pool: fixed market value, basis and purchase date. Liquidation tax rates are editable assumptions, not computed tax brackets.
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Set timing and fund assumptions
Allow direct bunching only when charities may receive gifts early. DAFs preserve annual grants. Enter fees and returns, and review projected tables and the ordinary-income scope.
4
Compare plans and inspect the ledger
Read the search status, compare costs and inspect annual limits, floor losses and carry expiry. Export a worksheet or compare in memory. Sharing and saving require separate consent.
All amounts are USD. The optimizer discounts each flow at its modeled date. FMV net cost without gain avoidance is shown separately. No actual securities sale or complete tax return is simulated.
Embedded gain and carry reconciliation
Gain = max(0, donated FMV − proportional basis); opening carry + new deductions = allowed + floor loss + expired + closing carry
A cash gift has no embedded gain. Carry retains its original year and last eligible year, origin + 5. An otherwise allowable carry is consumed even when the standard deduction is selected.
DAF funding requirement
Deposit = Σ grant / [(1 + r)(1 − f)]^(days/365)
r and f are entered annual return and proportional fee assumptions. Contributions receive the modeled deduction; grants do not create another deduction. Forward balances, fees and grants reconcile independently.
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YMYL
Trust, Methodology & Sources
Written by Calculover Editorial · Updated 2026-09-30 · 6 sources▸
Editorial accountability
Author: Calculover Editorial - Prepared for Calculover; not an independently reviewed expert publication
Owner: Calculover Editorial - Editorial maintenance; professional tax review pending
Last reviewed: 2026-09-30
Last verified: 2026-09-30
Data effective: 2025-01-01
Methodology
These dates record technical self-review and source consultation, not professional tax review. Native multi-year ordinary-tax/carry engine with finite block/channel/asset enumeration, independently derived fixtures and explicit rule boundaries. Technical integration is verified separately from professional tax review.
Assumption: All entered AGI is ordinary income; other itemized deductions have already been limited.
Assumption: One purchased public-securities pool has fixed FMV and proportional basis. DAF fee, return and liquidation rates are entered assumptions.
Assumption: 2027 onward uses acknowledged projections of 2026 tables and assumes unchanged law. Carry after the final entered year receives no terminal tax value.
Limitations & guidance
Binding 2026 mixed cash/noncash cap cases are blocked. The 2026 floor/carry interaction remains a disclosed planning interpretation requiring review.
No complete tax return, actual sale/NIIT/AMT/credit/state-tax model, QCD, special recipient/property classes or eligibility verification.
Exactness applies only to the declared finite model. A limited or supported-subset result is not an overall optimum.
Isolated DOM tests simulate worker transport; native workers, HTTP sharing/storage, production CSP and deployed behavior require real-origin verification.
Professional guidance: Educational estimates only; not financial, tax, legal or investment advice. No professional review is claimed. Confirm recipient qualification, substantiation and applicable filing instructions with a qualified adviser before acting.
AGI ↗Adjusted gross income used for percentage limits and the annual charitable floor. In this tool all AGI is assumed to be ordinary income.
Bunching ↗Funding multiple years of charitable goals in one year. Direct bunching accelerates charity receipts; a DAF can separate contribution and grant timing.
Donor-advised fund (DAF) ↗A charitable fund whose sponsoring organization has legal control of contributed assets, while the donor may retain advisory privileges.
Fair market value (FMV) ↗The entered market value of securities. This planning model holds the value of the single securities pool constant across years.
Basis ↗The entered tax basis allocated proportionately to donated securities. Short-term property does not automatically receive an FMV deduction.
Carryforward ↗An unused eligible deduction retained by original contribution year and category. The modeled general expiry is the fifth succeeding tax year.
Exact grid result ↗The lowest modeled cost among all allowed contiguous funding blocks and declared asset fractions, not proof of a continuous or complete real-world tax optimum.
Liquidation-equivalent cost ↗Donated FMV less ordinary-tax savings and the entered hypothetical tax avoided by not liquidating appreciated assets. It is not cash paid on a tax return.
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Scenarios
Real-World Examples
2 worked examples▸
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Two-year bunching
Hypothetical two-year bunching
Result
$7,762.00
AGI each year (USD) 100000Other itemized deductions each year (USD) 12000Annual gift goal (USD) 5,000Years 2Securities FMV (USD) 10,000Securities basis (USD) 3,000Assumed liquidation tax rate (%) 15
$7,762.00 liquidation-equivalent cost With a frozen 2027 projection and zero fees, returns and discounting, bunching $10,000 of long-term stock saves $1,188 ordinary tax plus $1,050 assumed gain tax. FMV net cost is $8,812. Direct bunching advances receipts.
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Annual asset mix
Annual-only mixed-asset comparison
Result
$8,772.50
Annual gift goal (USD) 5,000Years 2Securities fraction (%) 75Direct cash per year (USD) 1250Stock basis / FMV (%) 30Assumed liquidation tax rate (%) 15
$8,772.50 liquidation-equivalent cost With the same tax inputs, annual giving only and no DAF, the 25% grid selects 75% stock and 25% cash: $440 ordinary-tax savings and $787.50 assumed gain avoidance. Cost is $1.50 below annual all-stock giving.
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Reference
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Deep Dive
Compare charitable timing without confusing a deduction with savings
The same charitable goal can produce different donation dates, deductions and donor costs. This tool compares annual giving, direct bunching and DAF funding while following each year’s percentage limits and remaining carryovers. Its result is a bounded planning comparison, not a filing decision.
Start with what the charity should receive
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Enter annual receipt targets before choosing tax tactics. Direct bunching sends several years of support early. A DAF contribution can occur in one year with advisory grants later, but the funds have already been irrevocably committed to charity. A cheaper tax outcome does not make different receipt dates economically identical.
A larger deduction is not necessarily a larger tax benefit
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The engine compares ordinary federal tax with and without the proposed gifts. Existing donations and carryovers remain in the reference case. Standard deductions, the eligible nonitemizer cash deduction, percentage caps, the 2026 floor and section 68 can change the useful amount. The ledger distinguishes allowed deductions, amounts without current tax benefit, permanent floor loss, genuine expiry and surviving carry.
Keep stock economics separate from the tax-return model
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Appreciated securities can have an embedded gain, but this tool does not realize that gain or recompute AGI from a sale. The entered effective liquidation rate estimates a separate economic benefit. Read the FMV net cost alongside the liquidation-equivalent cost. Values with no embedded gain create no assumed gain-avoidance benefit.
Read the 2026 implementation boundary
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IRS 2025 instructions do not establish every new 2026 interaction. Binding mixed cash/noncash cap cases are blocked; floor/carry treatment is an explicit planning interpretation requiring review. A supported-subset result does not rank excluded cases. For 2027 and later, the shown ordinary brackets and standard deductions are acknowledged projections of 2026, not published future IRS tables.
Check the horizon, assumptions and supporting evidence
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Later tax years can recover eligible carryovers, but no tax value is assigned beyond the final entered year. DAF return, proportional fee, fixed stock FMV and discount assumptions are scenarios, not market data. Independent numerical fixtures and small exhaustive searches accompany the source package. Professional tax review is pending. Use the related tax and capital-gains calculators to examine separate assumptions; their results do not expand this model’s supported scope.
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Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
8 questions▸
Does bunching always reduce the cost?+
No. Timing, ordinary tax brackets, standard deductions, cash nonitemizer treatment, the floor, percentage limits and carry expiry interact. The optimizer searches the entered finite model, and direct bunching requires permission to accelerate charity receipts.
Is donating appreciated stock always better than cash?+
No. Holding period, basis, percentage limits, the standard deduction and the entered liquidation assumption matter. The annual-only worked example has a mixed cash/stock optimum. This tool excludes actual sale-at-a-loss strategies and multiple tax lots.
Do DAF grants generate another deduction?+
No second deduction is modeled. The completed contribution to the eligible sponsor receives the modeled deduction. Later grants use already-contributed charitable assets; sponsor eligibility and legal control must be verified.
Which tax years are supported?+
Actual ordinary federal tables and basic standard deductions are supplied for 2025 and 2026. A plan starts in one of those years. Entered years 2027–2035 are explicitly acknowledged projections of 2026 tables with an editable escalation, assuming unchanged charitable rules.
What is not supported in 2026?+
Binding mixed cash/noncash limits from 2026 are blocked. Floor and carry interactions are a disclosed planning interpretation awaiting professional review. AMT, preferential income and other excluded cases require another model.
What does a limited search mean?+
A found feasible candidate is an incumbent, not a proof of the best possible grid result. Reaching the limit without a feasible candidate does not prove impossibility. Unsupported alternatives also prevent an overall optimum claim.
Are my financial inputs automatically saved or shared?+
No. The default calculation is local and memory-only. Sharing and saving require separate explicit controls and consent. Encoded links are readable, not encrypted. Imported files and links are previewed before confirmation; clearing saved data does not delete already-exported copies.
Does a passing test suite replace tax review?+
No. The tests check numerical behavior and a declared model. They cannot determine your legal eligibility or validate excluded interactions. This AI-assisted planning model is maintained by Calculover Editorial. Professional tax review is pending, and the stated unsupported cases remain excluded.
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