If you are 70½ or older and you have a traditional IRA, there is a move that can shrink your tax bill and help a cause you care about at the same time.
It is called a qualified charitable distribution, or QCD, and a lot of retirees still do not know it exists.
Here is the basic idea: you ask your IRA custodian to send money directly from your IRA to a qualified charity.
Because the money never touches your hands, it does not count as taxable income.
That matters most for people who take required minimum distributions, because an RMD can push you into a higher bracket, raise your Medicare premium, or trigger taxes on Social Security. **The rules you need to know** You must be at least 70½ on the date of the gift.
The charity has to be a qualified 501(c)(3) — not a private foundation, donor-advised fund, or political group.
For 2025, you can move up to $108,000 per person, and married couples with separate IRAs can each give that amount.
The limit is indexed for inflation, so it ticks up most years.
The transfer must go straight from the IRA to the charity.
If you withdraw first and write a check, it counts as income.
One detail people miss: a QCD can satisfy your required minimum distribution for the year, as long as you have not already taken the full RMD.
If you have, the QCD still works, it just will not offset that withdrawal. **Why the tax math is better than a deduction** When you itemize, a charitable deduction only reduces taxable income by your marginal rate.
A QCD keeps the money out of your income entirely.
For someone in the 22% bracket, that is a real difference.
It can also keep more of your Social Security from being taxed and hold down the income-related surcharge on Medicare Part B and Part D. **How to actually do it** Call your IRA custodian and ask for a QCD form or a letter of instruction.
You will need the charity's legal name, address, and tax ID number.
Ask the charity for an acknowledgment letter — the IRS wants proof, and the custodian's statement alone may not be enough.
Transfers can take a week or more, and December is a terrible time to discover a paperwork problem.
Recheck the amount each year, since the cap changes.
If you are not yet 70½, you cannot use it.
If you give small amounts and take the standard deduction, the benefit is smaller.
But for retirees who give to their church, a university, or a local food bank, this is one of the few tax breaks that rewards generosity instead of paperwork. **Our take** Most retirement rules are designed to get money out of your account and into the IRS's ledger.
The qualified charitable distribution is a rare exception that lets you decide where a slice of that money goes instead.
Final Thoughts
If you are charitably inclined and past 70½, it is worth a phone call to your custodian before the year runs out.