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When professional baseball player Austin Barnes extended his contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers for another two years, he specifically included in the agreement a commitment on his part to make charitable donations.
That was a generous move and a financially savvy one all at the same time. He can put his money to work helping causes he believes in, while also enjoying tax advantages.
SEE MORE Which Type of Donor-Advised Fund Is Right for You?
Most of us don't have multimillion-dollar professional sports contracts like Barnes, but there are ways to increase your own donations and, at the same time, reduce your tax bill.
After all, you probably have a cherished cause — a church, an animal rescue organization, a homeless shelter or some other nonprofit — that you want to help. With charitable donations, you can choose specifically how your money is put to use, which isn't the case with your tax dollars, which just go into the big tax pot in Washington.
Think of it this way: If you were told that you aren't going to be able to keep $10,000 anyway, wouldn't you prefer to have a say in exactly how it is spent?
With that in mind, here are five ways to make charitable giving a key part of your financial plan:
1. Set up a donor-advised fund (DAF)
This is a strategy that isn't put into play often enough, in part because many people don't know about it. A donor-advised fund allows you to make a sizable charitable donation that you can claim immediately as a tax deduction. The money isn't donated immediately, though. Inste
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Stocks stabilized Wednesday after Tuesday's hotter-than-expected inflation data sparked Wall Street's worst selloff in over two years.
Inflation remained in focus today with the early morning release of the producer price index (PPI) for August. Similar to yesterday's consumer price index (CPI), the PPI - which measures what suppliers are charging for goods and services - rose at a slower annual clip in August than it did in July. However, on a month-over-month basis, both PPI and core PPI, which excludes energy and food prices, were up from July's figures.
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"There is a divergence in headline and core inflation building, where headline is cooling and core is heating up," says Jamie Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group. "That's an odd phenomenon and likely influenced by the shift from goods to services post-pandemic. The Fed should proceed with caution and not hit the emergency brake on rate hikes."
While yesterday's selling was broad-based, today's action was more mixed. In terms of sector performance, real estate (-1.2%) and materials (-1.2%) were the biggest laggards, while energy ( 2.8%) outperformed as U.S. crude futures rose 1.3% to settle at $88.48 per barrel.
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As for the major indexes, the Nasdaq Composite ended up 0.7% at 11,719, while the S&P 500 Index ( 0.3% at 3,946) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average ( 0.1% at 31,135) also finished with mode
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