President Donald Trump on stage at the Trump Accounts Summit at the Treasury Department in Washington, January 28, 2026.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide for wealthy investors and consumers. Register to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
As the Trump administration considers whether to allow donations of stock in Trump accounts for America’s children, the potential expansion raises questions about the legal path — and highlights the powerful tax benefits — to get there.
“We all want to maximize more multi-billion dollar gifts into children’s accounts and the gifts can be cash or stocks!” wrote Brad Gerstner, the hedge fund manager who pioneered investment accounts, in an article on X last week after The New York Times first reported the discussions.
The move would result in a notable change to the program, which currently requires contributions to be made in cash. Michael and Susan Dell, for example, pledged $6.25 billion to create Trump accounts for 25 million children ages 10 and younger in ZIP codes with a median income of $150,000 or less.
The structure already has tax advantages: Donors can use pre-tax dollars for charitable contributions to benefit a qualified class of beneficiaries. But allowing stock contributions to the accounts would allow donors to get rid of appreciated shares without paying capital gains tax. As with other charitable contributions, they can also deduct the fair market value of the shares from their income.
The benefit of double taxation would be similar to that of donating appreciated stocks to donor-advised funds and other charitable entities.
“This is a popular practice among particularly high-income taxpayers who would otherwise pay a high rate,” said Will McBride, chief economist at the Tax Foundation. “I think it would make sense for them to try to expand the law to apply here.”
“This initiative is named after Trump, so I think they’re going to try to make it as taxpayer-friendly as possible,” he added.
A White House official told CNBC via email that the administration “is always open to finding new ways to build on the immense success of the Trump accounts” but said she had no updates to share.
A Treasury Department spokesperson declined to comment on the possibility of accepting stock donations.
“The U.S. Treasury Department is committed to maximizing the impact of Trump accounts, supporting the enrollment of all eligible children, and achieving our goal of having every child in America have a Trump account,” the Treasury spokesperson said by email.
McBride said he believes the change will provide a strong incentive for donors to fund the accounts.
“We know that for many of the biggest billionaires, a lot of their wealth is held in stocks that have appreciated a lot, so they’re sitting on a lot of unrealized gains,” he said.
Still, the practice is not new and would not offer benefits unique to Trump accounts, according to Joseph Rosenberg, a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.
“I feel like it’s not a game-changer in that sense because people already have the opportunity to do it through private foundations and other vehicles,” he said.
Additionally, deductions for these donations would likely still be subject to the 30% of adjusted gross income, or AGI, cap that applies to long-term capital gains. The tax benefits of charitable giving for high earners were also reduced by last year’s tax and spending bill.
Manoj Viswanathan, a law professor and co-director of the Center on Tax Law at UC Law San Francisco, said more changes would be needed to make Trump accounts more tax-attractive, such as increasing the AGI cap for deducting donations in investment accounts.
Raising that cap wouldn’t make a huge difference for the ultra-rich, because their income pales in comparison to their assets, according to Ellen Aprill, a senior scholar in residence at UCLA Law School.
However, donating stock allows individuals to minimize or even eliminate their estate tax burden, she said. Unlike income tax, charitable deductions for gifts and inheritances are unlimited.
“The gift tax treatment deduction is very important for the super rich,” she said. “Making charitable donations allows assets to be removed from their estate while avoiding the built-in capital gains tax.”
Lawyers and tax policy experts who spoke to CNBC were divided on whether allowing stock donations would require legislative action or could be done via Treasury guidance or an executive order.
Viswanathan said he didn’t think an act of Congress would be necessary unless Treasury wanted to allow accounts to hold individual stocks.
Gerstner suggested in an article on
However, Invest America’s Account
McBride said expanding tax benefits for Trump account donors would face an uphill battle in Congress with a razor-thin Republican majority.