Qualified Charitable Distributions
Support your favorite causes with IRA distributions.
If you’re age 70½ or older, you can use your IRA assets to create a charitable fund to support your favorite charities. This is accomplished through qualified charitable distributions (QCDs). You can also use QCDs to pay premiums on a gift of life insurance to support your favorite charities upon death or make a one-time election to create a lifetime income gift for up to $54,000.
If you’re age 70½ or older, you can use your IRA assets to create a charitable fund to support your favorite charities. This is accomplished through qualified charitable distributions (QCDs). You can also use QCDs to pay premiums on a gift of life insurance to support your favorite charities upon death or make a one-time election to create a lifetime income gift for up to $54,000.
Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs)
What are QCDs?
A QCD is the direct transfer of assets from your IRA, payable to a qualifying charity, such as Thrivent Charitable. The amount transferred can be used to meet required minimum distributions (RMDs) from an IRA.
About giving QCDs
Want to explore further? Contact your Thrivent financial advisor or email thriventcharitable@thrivent.com today.
What is a QCD?
A QCD is the direct transfer of assets from your IRA, payable to a qualifying charity, such as Thrivent Charitable. The amount transferred can be used to meet required minimum distributions (RMDs) from an IRA.
- Donors age 70½ and older can transfer up to $108,000—indexed for inflation—annually from their IRAs to qualifying charities.
- Donors can gift once in their lifetime, up to $54,000—indexed for inflation—to create lifetime income with a gift annuity or charitable remainder trust.
What are the potential tax advantages of giving QCDs?
- The QCD amount directed to a qualified charity is not included in your adjusted gross income (AGI).
- Giving these assets to a charity versus taking RMDs as income may enable you to avoid certain disadvantages that can come with a higher AGI, such as higher Medicare premiums, self-employment or Social Security taxes, etc.
- There typically is no income tax due from you on the IRA distributions to a charity.
- Because QCDs are not subject to percentage limitations on charitable deductions, they can be an ideal strategy if you have either exceeded maximum charitable deductions or don’t itemize deductions.
What resources are available to me to learn more about giving QCDs?
If you would like to learn more before speaking with your financial advisor, we have several resources available for you to explore:
Qualified charitable distributions (brochure)Charitable Strategies - Qualified Charitable Distributions (video)