Tax break for food-equipment donors aims to boost nonprofit hunger relief
H.R. 5840 — Feed the Community Act · Filed by Nanette Barragán (D-CA) · 26 cosponsors · Introduced Oct 28, 2025 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill expands the charitable tax deduction for food-related donations. Currently, nonprofits that donate food inventory to hunger-relief organizations get enhanced tax deductions. The bill extends this same favorable tax treatment to donations of food-related equipment—refrigerators, delivery trucks, meal-prep equipment, and thermal carriers—but caps the deduction at 25% of fair market value and sets annual dollar limits ($500 for transport equipment, $15,000 for prep equipment). The benefit flows to donors (businesses, individuals) who give these items to food-service nonprofits.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a targeted tax deduction expansion—it uses the tax code to incentivize private donation of food-related equipment to nonprofits. This is a subsidy-by-tax-expenditure, not a direct appropriation, but the intent is clear: reduce the after-tax cost of donating equipment to hunger-relief organizations.
What the text implies
- The $15,000 annual cap on meal-prep equipment deductions may limit incentive for large-scale donors (commercial kitchens, food manufacturers) to donate high-value equipment, potentially capping the bill's effectiveness.
- The 25% fair-market-value cap on deductions means donors receive a smaller tax benefit than they would for food inventory donations, which may reduce uptake relative to the stated goal of incentivizing equipment donation.
The full analysis lists 4 implications of this text.
Who stands to gain
Individual and corporate donors of food-related equipment (reduced tax liability); Food-service nonprofits (receive donated equipment without cost)