Is It Better To Donate Miles Or Money To Charity?

No tax deduction for miles.

I worry that because of the new tax law charitable organizations must be feeling the impact more than ever. Since most people will no longer qualify for the itemized deduction, that does have an impact on some people who regularly choose to donate to charity.

Also all corporate donations should be priced at the value received by the charity not what the corporate donor thinks it's services are worth. Just like when I donate my car I cannot deduct what I think it's worth.

But the racist, evil, sub human scumbags that are Republicans will never agree to give up this loophole.
In other news a third world country like india will offer free health care to all its poor citizens ttps://www.newsweek.com/india-introducing-free-healthcare-500-million-people-1075607?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark

So when Republicans are trying to take away your health care in the USA they are murderers. Defend yourself against these murderers.

@ Michael -- That's a great point that I hadn't considered. I know the spread of donor-advised funds has made day-to-day operations challenging for many groups, as people put money in those funds each year for tax purposes, but don't necessarily distribute the funds with any regularity. The tax changes will likely exacerbate that.

Always better to donate money, in my opinion. In addition, if you time it right you may be able to earn bonus miles depending on the cause (like United’s recent bonus on donations that assist with wildfire damage).

@ Debit I think we will both agree that this is an aviation-related blog, and its best to leave this sort of politics out of it.
You don't realize it, but you could very easily offend someone who doesn't have the same political views as you do, and I'm sure calling them "racist, evil, sub human scumbags" doesn't put you in a good light, either.

I have donated miles to Make-A-Wish. I provided them with my United MileagePlus account number and told them how many miles to take, and when they were slated to expire. They can also accept Skymiles donations directly. For donations of American, Southwest or JetBlue, you have to visit the airline's donation page and select Make-A-Wish.

Enzo, have you read trump's tweets lately. It seems to work for him. And for people that sit silently on the sidelines and let him tweet. Anyway this article was about donations so my points were tangentially relevant.

Maybe I will become the president one day based on my vitriol, just like trump. Time for civility is long past.

Thank you so much for highlighting the buzz that Miles4Migrants has received. Since a tweet about our work went viral a couple of weeks ago, we've received pledged donations of over 30 million miles, and you're right that we could really use more money to cover taxes and fees on award flights. We are still working 100% on a volunteer basis and have almost no administrative expenses (basically a few bucks for hosting the website and processing payments), so basically everything given goes to reunite families.

@ Debit Whilst you may not agree with Donald or other strong Conservatives/Republicans like myself, it's not right to call us "racist, evil, sub human scumbags”- it's a matter of being open-minded and learning to understand that people will always have different opinions to your own and we live in a society where that is accepted, but being rude and making incorrect assumptions shouldn't be accepted. I'm not evil, racist or a murderer- I may not have your same political views, but it doesn't make it right to make these rude comments.

Everything you said in your original comment was valid, except "So when Republicans are trying to take away your health care in the USA they are murderers. Defend yourself against these murderers." and "the racist, evil, sub human scumbags that are Republicans".

@Debit I honestly would love to club you like a baby seal.........

A couple technical corrections/elaborations:

1. You say that "Give a Mile is a federally registered Canadian not for profit". This isn't wrong, but the language might cause some confusion. In Canada, the subset of NFPs that can issue tax receipts are called registered charities, which Give a Mile is not, currently (although their website says they are hoping to become one). Therefore, even for cash contributions, there is no tax benefit for Canadian resident taxpayers. I would say "federally incorporated Canadian not for profit" to avoid ambiguity around the word "registered".

2. Under the Canada-US tax treaty, US taxpayers can claim donations to Canadian NFPs if the NFP could qualify for deduction if it were resident in the US. My knowledge of US taxation is limited, so I don't know if Give a Mile would qualify or not as a 501(c)(3) organization if it were US-based. However, the second and more restrictive criterion is that under the treaty, donations to Canadian organizations can be claimed by US taxpayers only against Canadian-source income, which few Americans have. (OMAAT readers may want to invest in Westjet as AC doesn't pay dividends).

That being said, I encourage people to donate to good causes regardless of potential tax benefits.

- a Canadian CPA

@Enzo, I suppose that you wrote to the President as well and expressed these exact sentiments to him when he made fun of that reporter, the family that lost its son in Iraq and even John McCain. How did that go for you? You are a hypocrite plain and simple. And I and @Debit and anyone else for that matter have the “right” to go after fools like you.

I will 100% second @John regarding the retard-in-residence known as @Debit

thank you Tiffany for the info.