In The News: Tax-smart ways to donate stock to your favorite nonprofit
December 5, 2023 | Member Submitted
Originally Published in The Reno Gazette Journal 11/28/2023, Written by Kathryn Kelly
Did your stocks appreciate considerably in the past couple of years and you are wondering how to minimize capital gains taxes? In this season of Giving Tuesday and year-end charitable donations, an often overlooked win-win option is to donate stock, real estate or other non-cash assets you have held for at least a year to a nonprofit cause you care about and get some tax benefits.
Why not just write a check instead? Because by the time you sell the stock and pay capital gains taxes, you may lose up to a third of the original value. That excess value goes to the IRS and not to the nonprofit.
But not that many know about donating stock. According to a recent study by Fidelity Charitable, only half of respondents knew you could even donate stock, and fewer than one in five have actually done so.