I feel terrible that you have to pay taxes on earnings, it's heartbreaking. And on top of that you'll give money away to avoid paying taxes, you are a saint!
I assume you forgot the /s, LOL.
Usually our taxable cap gains aren't a big deal, we just profited unusually well last year. It happens, and our effective tax rate is still well below what it was when we were working, thankfully.
We started giving generously to charities as our income increased as we have no children; our family members are financially doing either adequately (in a couple of cases) or very well (for the majority). We have LTCi so no big worries about financial hardship for one spouse if the other needs seriously expensive care, and if both of us need Skilled Care Nursing we come out ahead (LTCi benefits are not taxable so it doesn't affect our Medicare premiums).
Spouse's RMDs will be about 2x what we usually donate annually, so I figure if we give half of it to charity that will substantially reduce the tax hit. We have three sources of guaranteed income so portfolio distributions are strictly "gravy" for us.
It just makes charitable donations a little more complex because I'm not sure exactly how we juggle donating stock (which is always an imprecise amount, since the total depends on whatever the stock price was at NYSE closing time on the date the request is processed) versus what we've always done before, which is easy-peasy: simply instruct a check to be sent from our DAF account.
Have already talked to our CFP firm so need to conference with our CPA next. I'll probably end up making a list of the charities we donate to, figure out amounts, and work with our advisers to set up a schedule so everything gets done no later than August or Sept., as one needs the actual receipt from the charity saying the donation has been received/recorded no later than 12/31/[year] for the IRS.
As for the OP's original question, we shall see how the OBBB affects us. The last Trump tax reform cost us $1200 yr more.
