Qualified Charitable Distributions and Your RMD
After 70½, giving directly from your IRA can beat writing a check — it lowers your AGI and counts toward your required minimum distribution.
What a QCD is
A qualified charitable distribution (QCD) lets someone aged 70½ or older transfer money directly from a traditional IRA to a qualified charity. The transferred amount is excluded from your taxable income entirely — a benefit that is often better than taking the money and claiming a charitable deduction.
The QCD Calculator compares the tax outcome of a QCD against an ordinary withdrawal so you can see the difference in dollars for your situation.
Why exclusion beats deduction
When you take a normal IRA withdrawal, it raises your adjusted gross income (AGI). You can donate it and itemize a deduction — but only if you itemize at all, and even then a higher AGI can quietly raise your Medicare premiums (IRMAA), increase the taxable portion of Social Security, and trigger other AGI-based phase-outs.
A QCD sidesteps all of that because the money never hits your AGI. For the roughly 90% of taxpayers who take the standard deduction, this is the only way to get a tax benefit from IRA charitable giving at all.
It counts toward your RMD
Once you reach the required-minimum-distribution age (73 under current law), the IRS forces taxable withdrawals from your traditional IRA each year. A QCD counts toward satisfying that RMD — so you can meet the requirement without the income hitting your return.
The calculator estimates your RMD and shows how much of it a QCD satisfies. Directing your RMD to charity via a QCD is one of the cleanest tax moves available to charitably inclined retirees.
The rules and limits
QCDs must go directly from the IRA custodian to the charity — you cannot take possession of the funds first. They are available from traditional IRAs (and inherited IRAs for beneficiaries who are 70½+), not from active 401(k)s. The annual limit is indexed for inflation, around $115,000 per person in 2026.
Donor-advised funds and private foundations generally do not qualify as QCD recipients, so the gift must go to an operating public charity. Your IRA custodian — for example Fidelity or Schwab — can process the transfer and provide the paperwork you need.
When a QCD makes sense
A QCD is ideal if you are 70½ or older, give to charity anyway, and either take the standard deduction or want to keep your AGI down. If you are still working and contributing to the IRA, special rules can reduce the benefit, so check before acting.
As always, coordinate with your tax preparer — software such as TurboTax handles QCD reporting, but the strategy itself is worth confirming with a professional given how it interacts with RMDs and Medicare.
Read the full guide