Making Donations from an IRA

Now that I have turned 70.5 years old, I am required to take annual RMDs (required minimum distributions) from my IRA. If I pay my tithing (or make any other charitable contributions) from this account, there is no income tax on the amount distributed.

The IRA requires that I provide a routing number and account number of the receiving account. LDS donation requires that I supply the routing number and account number of the transmitting account.

How do I make this work? Certainly there are thousands of other people in the same situation as I.

Instructions can be found here:

https://www.ldsphilanthropies.org/gift- ... a-qcd.html

delongrp2 wrote:How do I make this work?

According to the instructions to which mfmohlma linked, the only way to do it is if the IRA issues a check and mails it to the Church. Definitely old school, and they may not wish to do it.

I suggest you contact the Donations Department and ask if they can receive the transfer of funds electronically. If enough folks ask, maybe they will have it going by the time I turn 70 and a half.

If our company will not send a check directly to the church what would the process be to get it to the church?

Will your company make out the check to the church, but then give it to you to deliver?

Or is it that they do not want to write a check?

lajackson wrote:Will your company make out the check to the church, but then give it to you to deliver?

This defeats the purpose of making the IRA distribution directly to the church, a charitable organization. Keep in mind that distributions must be made directly to the charity, not to the owner or beneficiary. Having the distribution check sent to the owner or beneficiary would most likely be considered constructive receipt by the owner or beneficiary of the IRA even though the check is made out to the charity.

jdlessley wrote:Keep in mind that distributions must be made directly to the charity, not to the owner or beneficiary.

I am not a tax accountant, but as long as the check is made out to the charitable organization, it does not matter how it gets delivered in my experience. My company would make the check out as requested, give it to the employee to deliver to the charitable agency, and all survived a number of IRS audits over the years.

The employee cannot cash the check because it is not made out to him or her. Constructive receipt has not taken place. The funds went to the charitable organization. But the check cannot be made out to the employee. It must be made out to the organization.

Again, IANATA. But this process worked as recently as two years ago. Both the custodian of the 401k and the Church should be able to verify whether this will work or not today.

Can my non-member husband (age 73) make a QCD donation to the church on my (age 70) behalf with my record number?

sefleming wrote: Tue Apr 09, 2024 7:39 am Can my non-member husband (age 73) make a QCD donation to the church on my (age 70) behalf with my record number?

You may wish to check with a tax accountant, but I am pretty sure the answer is no. Any QCD donation he made to the church would need to be in his name.