While a specific charity may qualify with the IRS as a charitable organization for tax purposes, a taxpayer still needs to be able to itemize his or her tax deductions to deduct a charitable contribution. Charitable contributions are an itemized deduction. Schedule A is the tax form used to tally itemized deductions. These may include out-of-pocket health-related expenses, mortgage interest, property taxes, charitable contributions, and others.

In order to use Schedule A, you would need to use tax form 1040 and not 1040 EZ. Using the Schedule A form will let you determine whether your total itemized deductions are greater than the standard deduction in effect for that tax year. If they are not, you cannot subtract the charitable contribution.

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