If you're 70½ or older with a traditional IRA, there's a move that lets you give to charity while quietly trimming your tax bill — and new inflation-adjusted limits for 2025 make it worth a fresh look.
It's called a qualified charitable distribution, or QCD.
You instruct your IRA custodian to send money directly to a qualified charity.
The amount counts toward your required minimum distribution, but it never shows up as taxable income on your return.
A normal IRA withdrawal lands in your taxable income and can nudge you into a higher bracket, raise your Medicare premium surcharges, or shrink other deductions.
A QCD skips all of that because the money goes straight from the account to the charity.
For 2025, you can move up to $108,000 per person, up from $105,000 last year.
Married couples with separate IRAs can each use the full limit, so a household could direct up to $216,000.
The money must come out of the IRA and reach the charity in the same calendar year.
You can't withdraw the cash yourself and then write a check — that turns it into a taxable distribution.
Most large custodians, including Fidelity, Vanguard, and Schwab, have a form or online tool for exactly this, and they'll cut the check or wire it to the charity you name.
One quirk worth knowing: starting this year, the limit is indexed to inflation, so it will creep up in future years.
Another is that a one-time option lets you move up to $54,000 from an IRA into a charitable gift annuity or charitable remainder trust — useful if you want income back as well as a gift.
Retirees who already give to their church, alma mater, or a local nonprofit and who don't itemize.
Since the standard deduction jumped years ago, many older households get no write-off at all for cash gifts.
A QCD sidesteps that problem entirely because it works whether or not you itemize.
You can't send a QCD to a donor-advised fund, a private foundation, or most supporting organizations, so check the charity's status first.
Keep the receipt from the charity and the confirmation from your custodian — you'll want both if the IRS asks.
And confirm your custodian reports it correctly on your year-end tax form, typically as a code "Q" distribution.
Custodians get swamped in December, and a check that arrives in January counts for the next tax year.
If you're close to a deadline, ask about a wire instead of a mailed check.
Finally, run the numbers before you commit.
A QCD reduces your IRA balance, which lowers future required distributions — a plus for some, a drawback for heirs who'd rather inherit the account.
A tax pro can tell you quickly whether directing the gift beats simply writing a check.
The takeaway: if you're charitably inclined and sitting on a traditional IRA, a QCD is one of the few tools that lets you give more while owing less.
Final Thoughts
Just start the paperwork early and keep every confirmation.