Your clients can use up to $53,000 of their IRA’s Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) to make life-income charitable gifts.

The details:

  • Charitable gift annuities (CGAs), charitable remainder unitrusts (CRUTs) and charitable remainder annuity trusts (CRATs) can be funded by transfers (rollovers) to qualified charities from their IRAs.
  • Available to taxpayers 70½ or over.
  • Qualified income beneficiaries: the IRA owner, the spouse or both.
  • $53,000 maximum.
    • Caution—the fine print: a one-year only transfer. If a taxpayer rolls over a lesser amount—say $10,000—she can’t rollover even one penny in future tax years. But, she can rollover the balance of $43,000 in the same year.