The Steward's Desk · Charitable giving
For people past 70½ who already give to charity, IRA dollars can be among the more tax-efficient ways to do it.
Jesse Plunkett, CEPA®, CRPC®
July 12, 2026 · Meet your advisor · 
A qualified charitable distribution moves money from your IRA directly to a charity. You must be 70½ or older, and the transfer has to go straight from the IRA custodian to the charity, never through your hands. The amount stays off your tax return as income, up to an annual limit the IRS now adjusts each year. That indexing is recent. The QCD cap sat frozen at $100,000 for years until the SECURE 2.0 Act tied it to inflation starting in 2024, so the ceiling has climbed every year since. It is generous enough that most givers will never reach it, but if you are planning a large gift, confirm the current year's figure with your custodian before the transfer rather than after.
Compare that to the usual route. Normally, taking money out of a traditional IRA adds it to your income, and giving to charity only helps your taxes if you itemize deductions. A QCD collapses the two steps into one clean move: the money goes to the charity, and the income never appears in the first place.
One boundary up front: QCDs come from IRAs. Workplace plans like 401(k)s cannot send them, though money rolled from a 401(k) into an IRA becomes eligible once it is there.
Because a deduction only works if you itemize, and in retirement many filers take the standard deduction instead. For them, a cash gift brings no tax benefit at all. A QCD does not depend on itemizing. The dollars leave your IRA, reach the charity, and simply never count as income, whichever deduction you take.
Lower reported income helps in more places than the tax bracket. How much of your Social Security is taxable depends on your other income, and by the IRS formula up to 85 percent of benefits can be federally taxable. Medicare premium surcharges are set by your income from two years earlier. A QCD keeps IRA dollars out of all of those calculations, which a deduction, even a good one, does not do.
Once required minimum distributions begin, at age 73 or 75 depending on your birth year under the SECURE 2.0 Act, a QCD counts toward that year's requirement. Money the rules force out of your IRA can go to charity instead of onto your tax return. And QCDs start earlier, at 70½, before RMDs do.
That head start is useful. Giving from the IRA in the years between 70½ and your RMD age shrinks the account, which shrinks every required withdrawal that follows. One timing wrinkle deserves care: the first dollars out of your IRA each year count toward that year's RMD, so if charity is part of the plan, the QCD belongs before your large withdrawals, not after the requirement is already met.
The frequent ones are mechanical, and every one is avoidable. A check made payable to you instead of the charity is just a taxable withdrawal. A late-December gift that doesn't leave the IRA in time lands in the wrong tax year. And a tax preparer who wasn't told about the QCD will treat it as ordinary income.
The fixes are simple. Have the custodian make the check out to the charity, give December gifts a few weeks of breathing room, and keep the charity's written acknowledgment with your tax records. The custodian's 1099-R won't label the distribution as a QCD, so your preparer needs to hear about it from you. Two boundaries to know: donor-advised funds and private foundations can't receive QCDs, and you can't claim a charitable deduction for a gift that was already excluded from income.
Then it's worth checking whether those should be the same dollars. Looking at a QCD alongside your withdrawal plan is a normal thing to do together, and a short call is the place to start.
Yes. QCDs are available from age 70½, while required minimum distributions now begin at 73 or 75 depending on your birth year. Giving from your IRA in those in-between years shrinks the account, which also shrinks the required withdrawals that come later. For charitable retirees, that window is a useful one.
No. Under the tax code, donor-advised funds, private foundations, and supporting organizations cannot receive qualified charitable distributions. The gift has to go directly to an operating charity. A donor-advised fund can still suit your other giving, but it gets funded with cash or appreciated stock, never with a QCD.
It can. Medicare premium surcharges are based on your income from two years earlier, and a QCD keeps IRA dollars from ever entering that income. Whether it changes your premium depends on where your income lands, but for giving you planned to do anyway, lower reported income is the helpful direction.
Your custodian's 1099-R shows the distribution without marking it as charitable, so the exclusion happens on your return: the full distribution is listed, the qualified amount is subtracted, and a QCD notation goes beside it. Tell your tax preparer about every QCD you make, and keep each charity's written acknowledgment.