Tax bill quietly eliminates IRS accuracy penalties while expanding charitable deduction
S. 317 — Charitable Act · Filed by James Lankford (R-OK) · 23 cosponsors · Introduced Jan 29, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill allows taxpayers who do not itemize deductions to claim a charitable contribution deduction for tax years 2026–2027, capped at one-third of the standard deduction. It also eliminates two accuracy-related tax penalties (the penalty under IRC §6662(b)(9) and the increased penalty under §6662(l)) and makes conforming changes to cross-references.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a two-part tax code amendment: (1) a temporary charitable deduction for non-itemizers, and (2) elimination of two accuracy-related penalties. Both provisions reduce tax liability and enforcement, making this fundamentally a tax-relief measure with a secondary enforcement-reduction component.
- Elimination of §6662(b)(9) and §6662(l) penalties is substantively unrelated to charitable deduction policy and appears to be a separate tax-compliance/enforcement carve-out.
What the text implies
- The penalty elimination in subsection (b) is not limited to charitable-contribution errors; it removes accuracy penalties across all tax-reporting categories, potentially reducing IRS enforcement leverage on unrelated compliance issues.
- The charitable deduction is temporary (2026–2027 only), creating a sunset that may require future legislative action to extend, or may be designed to appear revenue-neutral in a 10-year budget window while providing immediate relief.
- Capping the deduction at 1/3 of the standard deduction means the benefit is modest for most taxpayers but may be material for high-income donors who do not itemize (e.g., those with large charitable intent but limited mortgage/state-tax deductions).
- Conforming amendments to §6664(c)(2) and §6751(b)(2)(A) suggest the penalty elimination has downstream effects on penalty-determination procedures and may affect related accuracy-penalty regimes not explicitly named in the bill.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The charitable deduction expansion benefits taxpayers who donate to charity and do not itemize, lowering their tax burden and potentially incentivizing charitable giving. However, the elimination of accuracy-related penalties reduces IRS enforcement capacity and may increase tax-reporting errors or non-compliance, shifting audit and penalty risk away from taxpayers and onto the public (lower revenue, higher deficits or reduced services).
Who stands to gain
- individual taxpayers who donate to charity and do not itemize deductions
- taxpayers subject to accuracy-related penalties under IRC §6662
Named in the bill
Internal Revenue Code of 1986, IRC §170 (charitable contributions), IRC §6662 (accuracy-related penalties), IRC §6664 (penalty procedures), IRC §6751 (penalty procedures), U.S. Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service
Where it stands
23 cosponsors: 12 Republicans, 11 Democrats.
- Jan 29, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jan 29, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Finance · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
19 lobbying clients named this bill on 26 disclosure filings across 3 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $1,533,748 in lobbying spend. A filing names 5 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 96% of bills with at least one filing.
James Lankford, the sponsor, reported $368,500 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- United Way Worldwide (uww) — $240,000 on 2 filings
- American Lung Association — $190,000 on 2 filings
- Ywca USA — $167,678 on 2 filings
- National Assn of Independent Colleges & Universities — $155,000 on 2 filings
- National Council of Nonprofits (formerly Known As the National Council of Nonpro — $147,024 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 21, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,688 characters) on Sep 5, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 21, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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