I’m the co-founder and CEO of PolicyEngine, a tech nonprofit that computes the impacts of public policy (policyengine.org). I’m also the founder and president of the UBI Center, a think tank researching universal basic income policies (ubicenter.org).
I first got into EA in 2012: I worked at Google at the time, and Google.org made a grant to GiveDirectly. I’ve since taken the GWWC pledge and focused my giving on GiveDirectly and GiveWell. I was active in Google’s EA group and also MIT’s when I went there for grad school in 2020.
I’m also the founder of Ventura County YIMBY, and a volunteer California state coordinator for Citizens’ Climate Lobby, a grassroots organization advocating for a national carbon fee-and-dividend policy.
Thanks for the suggestion! Currently, GiveCalc handles the charitable deduction value whether you donate cash or appreciated assets—you’d enter the fair market value of the assets as your donation amount. (One limitation is that we assume all donations are cash, which can be deducted up to 60% of AGI, while appreciated assets are limited to 30% of AGI.)
We could add functionality to compare scenarios, like donating an appreciated asset vs selling it and donating the after-tax proceeds. I’ve opened an issue to explore this: https://github.com/PolicyEngine/givecalc/issues/41
Could you help us understand your use case? When considering donating appreciated assets, would you want to:
See the tax implications of donating at current market value, accounting for the 30% AGI limit?
Compare with the scenario of selling the asset and paying capital gains tax?
Something else?
Your thoughts on which calculations would be most helpful would be great to hear.