This is a very aggressive approach, but there are legal ways to change your tax status that can have a more positive impact. For example, you can time your giving to maximize charitable deductions and use that to give more.
Suppose you make $200K annually and give 10%. If you give $20K p/year to the charity of your choice, then there is a good chance that you won’t be able to claim a charitable deduction (the standard deduction for a couple is $27,700--so you would have to find another $7.7K in itemized deductions and even then it is only any additional dollars that would be deducted).
However, if you instead put the $20K in an index fund growing at 6% you’d end up with around $110K after 5 years. Give that to charity and you can deduct $96K+ from your income. That is tax savings of over $20K, which you can use to increase your giving.
This is a very aggressive approach, but there are legal ways to change your tax status that can have a more positive impact. For example, you can time your giving to maximize charitable deductions and use that to give more.
Suppose you make $200K annually and give 10%. If you give $20K p/year to the charity of your choice, then there is a good chance that you won’t be able to claim a charitable deduction (the standard deduction for a couple is $27,700--so you would have to find another $7.7K in itemized deductions and even then it is only any additional dollars that would be deducted).
However, if you instead put the $20K in an index fund growing at 6% you’d end up with around $110K after 5 years. Give that to charity and you can deduct $96K+ from your income. That is tax savings of over $20K, which you can use to increase your giving.
I’m pretty sure there are limits to the pre-tax income you can put in an index fund (like a 401K).
This is not talking about pre-tax investment.