If you are 70½ or older, there is a quiet rule sitting in the tax code that lets you move money straight from an IRA to a charity, and the IRS never touches it.
It is called a qualified charitable distribution, or QCD, and it has become one of the most useful tools for retirees who want to give without adding to their taxable income.
You ask your IRA custodian to send money directly to a qualified charity.
Because the money never passes through your hands, it does not count as taxable income.
That single detail matters more than it sounds, because it can lower the income that determines how much of your Social Security is taxed and how much you pay for Medicare premiums.
The limit for 2025 is $108,000 per person, up from $105,000 last year.
If you are married and both of you have IRAs, each spouse can give that full amount.
The money has to come from an IRA, not a 401(k) or a Roth.
It must go straight to the charity, not to you first and then to the charity.
You have to be at least 70½ on the day the gift is made.
You do not have to be taking required minimum distributions yet, but once you are, a QCD can count toward your RMD.
That is the part that makes accountants smile.
Instead of pulling money out, paying tax on it, and then writing a check, you send it directly and skip the tax entirely.
If you take the standard deduction, which most retirees now do after the 2017 tax law raised it, your charitable gifts no longer show up as an itemized write-off.
A QCD gets around that problem because the benefit is the excluded income, not a deduction.
For many households, that makes giving from an IRA worth more than writing a check.
The charity must be a qualified 501(c)(3) organization.
Gifts to private foundations, donor-advised funds, and political groups generally do not qualify.
Always confirm before you instruct your custodian.
And get a receipt from the charity showing the gift came from your IRA.
Your custodian will send a Form 1099-R showing the distribution, and it may look like taxable income on the surface.
You or your tax preparer report it as a QCD on your return so the exclusion is applied.
For retirees who give every year, this is not a loophole.
It is a straightforward way to be generous without pushing yourself into a higher tax bracket or a bigger Medicare bill.
In my view, the QCD is one of the few breaks in the tax code that rewards people for doing something decent.
Final Thoughts
If you are charitably inclined and sitting on a traditional IRA, ask your custodian about it before the year ends.