The recent runup in the stock market, combined with the holiday season, may have left you in more of a giving mood than you expected to be at this time of year. There are still a few days left in which you can make charitable contributions and deduct them from your taxes.
In fact, if you're supremely indecisive about these things, you can wait until nearly midnight on December 31st nowadays, thanks to the Internet. Even if you're moving funds from a brokerage account, some places let you make an electronic funds transfer to the charity of your choice right up to the last minute on New Year's Eve.
But if you need to get a check from your account and send it to the church or charity of your choice, the rule is that it has to be postmarked by December 31st. So if this is something you want to pursue by year's end, you should call your brokerage or financial adviser now - as in today - to see what you need to do to make it happen.
One common option this time of year is to donate appreciated stock, which means you don't need to pay capital gains tax on the runup. But because of the unusual mature of this year's market, with a deep plunge in March, be careful that the stock is indeed worth more now than what you paid for it - you can't just measure the appreciation from the lowest point. And you must have held the stock for at least a year in order to qualify for the cap-gains writeoff.
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