One set of tweaks brings major changes to the tax treatment of charitable contributions, getting non-itemizers back into the tax-saving game but curtailing tax benefits for itemizers and higher-income filers. For the masses, that reduced the appeal of charitable donations, since the only way to benefit from contributions was via an itemized deduction. Losing a major selling point, the country's charities pushed for the creation of an "above-the-line" deduction for non-itemizers. Unlike itemized charitable contributions, there's no carry-forward for contributions that exceed your cap on the deduction in a given year. Generally, taxpayers can calculate the benefit of a tax deduction by multiplying it by their marginal tax rate.