E ven though the higher standard deduction limits make charitable deductions harder to find, there are still great options to find tax breaks within your charitable giving. Here are five tips to use charitable tax breaks: Qualified charitable distributions. If you’re age 70½ or older, you can transfer up to $100,000 (or a total of $200,000 for joint filers) directly from your IRA to a qualified charitable organization without paying any tax. Because distributions done this way are not subject to federal tax, it's like contributing with pre-tax dollars. Plus, your contribution counts as a required minimum distribution for tax purposes. Appreciated securities. Donate appreciated property (like securities) to a qualified charity and you can deduct the current fair market value (FMV) of the property if you’ve owned them longer than a year. For example, if you acquired stock three years ago for $7,500 and it’s now worth $10,000, you can donate it and deduct the entire $10,000 FMV if you itemize your deductions. There’s no capital gains tax on the $2,500 appreciation in value – ever! This is a great strategy if you are close to or over the itemized deduction threshold in a given year. Bunching donations. Under current tax law, the standard deduction is more than double the historic rates, effectively lowering the amount of taxpayers who will itemize their deductions. As a result, it now makes sense to “bunch” large gifts of property, like securities (see #2), in a tax year in which you expect to itemize. Conversely, if you don’t anticipate itemizing in the current tax year, you may consider postponing donations into the next year. The idea is to get the most tax deductions possible over a multiyear period. Leverage the new charitable deduction rule. Beginning in 2026, you can now directly deduct charitable contributions without itemizing. The amount is $1,000 ($2,000 for a married filing joint tax return). Consider a Donor Advised Fund (DAF). This idea is to be used in conjunction with tips 2 and 3. With this idea, you create a Donor Advise Fund. You then donate appreciated assets (stocks) into the fund (tip 2). You donate enough in one year to exceed the standard deduction for that year (tip 3). You then donate your funds out of the DAF over the years. While the money is no longer yours, you still control what qualified charities receive the money. Note: You cannot use a DAF to qualify for the new, non-itemized charitable giving rule outlined in tip 4.  With each of these ideas, it's essential to follow the rules when donating. If not, your good intentions may not be deemed a qualified donation for tax purposes. Ask for help if you'd like to review your situation.

Every time a big tech company talks about AI, one number seems to grab all the headlines. Spending. Google's parent company, Alphabet, is pouring an enormous amount of money into new data centers, servers, and AI infrastructure. But here's what is surprising. The company is making money even faster than it is spending it. Alphabet reports earnings after the market closes today, and investors will be watching one question more than any other. Can profits continue to grow while AI spending keeps accelerating? So far, the answer has been yes. In the first quarter, Alphabet's revenue increased 22 percent while operating income jumped 30 percent. Its operating margin reached its highest level in five years, helped by strong growth in both Google Search and Google Cloud. Cloud revenue alone jumped 63 percent, giving the company another major source of profits beyond advertising. At the same time, the price tag for AI keeps getting bigger. Alphabet spent nearly $36 billion last quarter building AI infrastructure, and Wall Street expects that number to climb to around $44 billion this quarter. The company has already said it could spend as much as $190 billion this year, with even higher spending expected next year. Why does this matter to everyday investors? Because AI is becoming one of the biggest bets in business history. These companies are investing now with the expectation that AI products will generate years of future revenue. If that happens, today's spending could look like a smart investment. If not, investors may begin questioning whether the costs have become too high. Reuters recently reported that AI spending across the biggest technology companies is expected to outpace growth in free cash flow over the next few years, making future earnings even more important. The latest earnings report won't just tell us how Google performed over the last three months. It will also give investors another clue about whether the AI boom is paying off or whether the bill is finally starting to catch up.