What substantiation is required to deduct a charitable contribution of $250 or more?
For a charitable gift of $250 or more, the deduction is allowed only if the donor gets a contemporaneous written acknowledgment from the charity. That requirement is statutory — Section 170(f)(8) — and a receipt obtained later will not save the deduction.
The answer
The rule
26 U.S.C. § 170(f)(8) denies a deduction for any single contribution of $250 or more unless the taxpayer obtains a contemporaneous written acknowledgment from the donee organization. The acknowledgment must state the amount of cash and describe any property contributed, and whether the charity provided any goods or services in return (and if so, a good-faith estimate of their value).
Why “contemporaneous” matters
The acknowledgment has to be in hand by the earlier of the date the taxpayer files the return or its due date. A receipt produced later, during an audit, does not cure a missing acknowledgment. For cash gifts, separate recordkeeping rules under the section 170 regulations also apply.
The judged input
What the AI drafted
Submitted to the judgeThis is the kind of answer a cloud legal AI returns for the question above. Kingsfield does not write it — it rules on the citations the model put in it. This draft cites two authorities; one of them is wrong.
The judge ruled on every citation as the draft used it — it accepted 26 U.S.C. § 170(f)(8) and rejected 26 U.S.C. § 170(b). Here is why.
The verdict
How Kingsfield ruled
Ruled 2026-06-23Each citation in the draft above was submitted to the Kingsfield judge and ruled against the primary-law corpus — Accept, Reject, or Inconclusive, per citation. These are live verdicts, not editorial. Each card shows the claim the draft made and the verbatim authority the verdict was rendered against.
The draft claimed: No deduction is allowed for a charitable contribution of $250 or more unless the taxpayer substantiates it with a contemporaneous written acknowledgment from the donee organization.
“§ 170(f)(8)(A) No deduction shall be allowed under subsection (a) for any contribution of $250 or more unless the taxpayer substantiates the contribution by a contemporaneous written acknowledgment of the contribution by the donee organization that meets the requirements of subparagraph (B).”
Cite found; proposition supported by the cited text.
The draft claimed: Section 170(b) sets out the recordkeeping and contemporaneous-written-acknowledgment substantiation requirements for charitable contributions.
Cite found, but the cited text does not support the proposition. 26 U.S.C. 170(b) sets the percentage-of-adjusted-gross-income limitations on the charitable-contribution deduction, not the substantiation requirements; the contemporaneous-written-acknowledgment rule is 26 U.S.C. 170(f)(8). Regenerate with the correct authority.
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Kingsfield rules on every citation, quote, and proposition your AI produces, against the primary law we cover. Accept, Reject, or Inconclusive, per citation, with a signed Audit Capsule.
Connect the Judge See the architectureThis page is legal information, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. The draft shown is an illustration of a typical AI answer; verdicts reflect the cited authority in the Kingsfield corpus as of the ruling date shown above.