What IRS documentation is required to substantiate charitable deductions in tax year 2025?
Executive summary
Taxpayers claiming charitable deductions for tax year 2025 must substantiate gifts with different records depending on whether gifts were cash or noncash, and on value thresholds; cash gifts need contemporaneous written records or bank/credit-card evidence and any contribution of $250 or more requires a written acknowledgment from the charity, while noncash gifts may trigger Form 8283 and appraisal rules for larger donations [1] [2] [3]. Itemizers report deductions on Schedule A (Form 1040), and the IRS’s Publication 526, Topic 506, and Publication 1771 lay out the specific substantiation and disclosure requirements taxpayers must follow [4] [5] [6].
1. Cash gifts: what counts as proof and when an acknowledgment is required
Monetary contributions are substantiated by bank records, canceled checks, credit-card statements, or a contemporaneous written communication from the qualified organization that shows the organization’s name, date, and amount; for any single contribution of $250 or more the donor must obtain a written acknowledgment from the charity stating whether any goods or services were provided in return [2] [1] [7]. The IRS explicitly allows one document from the charity to satisfy both the basic written-record requirement and the contemporaneous acknowledgment for gifts of $250+ [1].
2. Noncash contributions: Form 8283 and the appraisal thresholds
Noncash gifts under $500 require careful records (receipts, pictures, descriptions), but noncash contributions whose deduction exceeds $500 require the donor to complete and attach Form 8283 (Noncash Charitable Contributions) to the return, and noncash gifts valued above $5,000 generally require a qualified appraisal and the appraisal summary attached to Form 8283 per IRS guidance and practice reflected in Publication 526 and secondary reporting [3] [1] [8]. Household items must be in "good used condition or better" to qualify, and failure to supply the requisite descriptions or appraisals has been enforced in court decisions cited by practitioners [8].
3. How to report: Schedule A, valuation limits, and special rules
To claim charitable deductions in 2025 taxpayers generally must itemize on Schedule A (Form 1040); the IRS and Publication 526 describe percentage-of-AGI limits that vary by type of gift and recipient (commonly 20–60% depending on the gift and organization), and special rules apply for donated vehicles, food inventory by businesses, donor-advised funds, and qualified charitable distributions from IRAs [4] [6] [9]. Organizations’ deductibility status and applicable AGI limits can be checked using the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search tool referenced by the IRS [4] [6].
4. Recordkeeping, contemporaneous requirements, and practical takeaways
The IRS and practitioner guides emphasize contemporaneous documentation: keep receipts that describe donated property, acknowledgment letters for $250+ gifts, bank or credit-card records for cash gifts, Form 8283 for larger noncash gifts, and qualified appraisals where required — failure to maintain those records risks disallowance as courts and tax advisors have warned [7] [1] [8]. Advisors and nonprofit commentators also recommend preserving photographs, inventory lists, and donor-advised fund statements when relevant, because administrative changes and increased IRS enforcement tools make documentation more consequential [10] [8].
5. Areas of dispute and limits of available reporting
While the IRS sources (Publication 526, Topic 506, Publication 1771) set the substantiation rules, secondary sources highlight practical tensions — for example, donors and charities sometimes disagree over what constitutes an adequate description of donated items or the charity’s responsibility to provide contemporaneous acknowledgments, and new policy changes for 2026 (a 0.5% AGI floor and a separate non-itemizer deduction created by legislation) have injected planning urgency into 2025 giving strategies; reporting summarizes these developments but does not replace tailored tax advice [5] [11] [9]. This reporting does not cover every hypothetical (for example, state-level differences or unusual property valuation disputes), and taxpayers should consult Publication 526, Publication 561, and a tax professional for complex situations [5] [6].