A qualified charitable distribution from an IRA, known as a QCD, is money that moves straight from your individual retirement account (IRA) to a charity, and it never lands in your taxable income. You have to be 70½ or older on the day it leaves. The money has to reach the charity without passing through your hands. For the 2026 tax year you can keep up to $111,000 of it out of your income, and if you are old enough to owe a required minimum distribution (RMD), the transfer counts toward that year’s required amount. Veterans Transition Center of California (VTC), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in Marina, is one of the charities eligible to receive one.
The rule has been in the tax code since 2006, and the number attached to it moves every year. Three details cause most of the trouble. The age for a QCD is 70½ while the age for a required withdrawal is 73. The annual cap is indexed to inflation, so a figure copied from an old article is the wrong figure. And a deductible IRA contribution made after you turn 70½ reduces the amount you are allowed to exclude. All three are below, with the 2026 figures and the place the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) posts the next set.
What makes a distribution qualified?
Four conditions, all of them set out in section 408(d)(8) of the tax code (opens in a new tab). Miss one and the transfer turns into an ordinary taxable withdrawal.
- You are 70½ or older on the date of the distribution. The law says on or after the date you attain age 70½, which is a day on the calendar rather than a tax year.
- The money moves directly from the IRA trustee to the charity. You cannot take it out, deposit it, and write your own check.
- The charity is an organization described in section 170(b)(1)(A), the public-charity category. The statute carves out two: supporting organizations and donor-advised funds cannot receive a QCD.
- A deduction for the entire distribution would be allowable. Anything that comes back to you, such as a seat at a fundraising dinner or a raffle ticket, breaks the whole gift.
One exception softens the second condition. The IRS says in Notice 2007-7 (opens in a new tab) that if a check from an IRA is made payable to the charity and you deliver it yourself, the payment still counts as a direct payment by the trustee. The name on the check does the work. A check written to you does not become a QCD because you signed it over.
The same notice reads the account rules broadly. The exclusion is generally available from any type of IRA, and that takes in a Roth IRA. Two workplace accounts are the exception while an employer is still funding them: the Simplified Employee Pension (SEP) IRA and the Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees (SIMPLE) IRA. The exclusion also reaches an IRA you inherited, as long as you have passed 70½ before the money goes out.
Why is the QCD age 70½ and the withdrawal age 73?
Congress raised the age for required withdrawals and left the QCD age alone. The IRS now sets the required beginning date (opens in a new tab) at April 1 of the year following the year you reach age 73, with every later withdrawal due by December 31. The QCD age stayed at 70½, where it has been since 2006.
That leaves a stretch of roughly two and a half years when you can move money out of the IRA tax free and have no required withdrawal to cover. The transfer still pays off twice. It leaves the account without ever being taxed, and it shrinks the balance that each later required withdrawal is figured from.
How much can you give from an IRA tax free?
For the 2026 tax year the ceiling is $111,000 per person. That figure comes from IRS Notice 2025-67 (opens in a new tab), which raised it from $108,000 for 2025. The amount is indexed for inflation and the IRS restates it in a notice each fall, so the number is worth checking against the current notice before you sign anything.
The ceiling belongs to the person, not to the account. Notice 2007-7 explains that an owner with several IRAs who sends gifts out of more than one still gets a single annual total. A spouse who owns an IRA has a separate ceiling of the same size.
A second, smaller number sits inside the first. Once in your life you may route up to $55,000 in 2026 through a split-interest entity. That means a charitable remainder trust or a charitable gift annuity funded only by qualified charitable distributions, and a gift annuity has to start paying at least 5 percent within a year of funding. Those dollars are QCDs too, so they sit inside the annual ceiling rather than on top of it.
Why an exclusion beats a deduction
A QCD is not a deduction, and that turns out to be the better end of the deal. Notice 2007-7 states that amounts excluded under section 408(d)(8) are not taken into account in figuring a charitable deduction under section 170. You leave the income off the return instead of subtracting it further down the page.
Two changes that begin with the 2026 tax year make that worth more than it used to be. Taxpayers who itemize now lose the deduction on the first half of one percent of adjusted gross income they give away, a floor written into section 170 of the tax code (opens in a new tab). People who do not itemize can deduct up to $1,000, or $2,000 on a joint return, and IRS Topic no. 506 (opens in a new tab) limits that one to cash contributions. A QCD meets neither rule and needs neither. It never enters adjusted gross income, so the floor has nothing to bite and the standard deduction is beside the point.
A smaller adjusted gross income can reach past the tax bill. Medicare has set the Part B premium by income since 2007, and the 2026 surcharge (opens in a new tab) starts above $109,000 of modified adjusted gross income for someone filing alone and above $218,000 for a couple filing jointly. A distribution that stays out of your gross income cannot push you across a line like that one.
The rule that catches donors who still fund an IRA
Some people past 70½ are still drawing a paycheck, still putting money in an IRA, and still deducting it. The tax code takes that deduction back out of the QCD. Your exclusion for the year is reduced by the IRA contributions you deducted in any year you were 70½ or older, less whatever has already been used against an earlier gift.
Publication 590-B (opens in a new tab) works an example. Jim turned 70½ in 2023, then deducted $5,000 for 2024 and another $5,000 for 2025. He gave $6,000 to charity from his IRA in 2025. His deducted contributions came to $10,000, more than the gift, so none of the $6,000 was excludable and $4,000 carried into the next worksheet. He gave $6,500 the following year and could exclude $2,500 of it.
The contribution and the gift do not have to fall in the same year. The reduction is cumulative, and it follows you forward until it has been used up.
How do you send a QCD without breaking it?
- Call the custodian and use the words qualified charitable distribution. Ask for the money to go to the charity rather than to you, and confirm how long the transfer takes.
- Turn off withholding. Notice 2007-7 says a QCD is not subject to withholding, and any tax held back never reaches the charity.
- Tell the charity before the money moves. Custodian checks often arrive carrying an account number and no donor name, and the charity has no way to guess whose gift it is.
- Ask for the acknowledgment. A QCD still has to meet the substantiation rules under section 170(f)(8), and Publication 526 (opens in a new tab) requires a written acknowledgment for any gift of $250 or more that names the amount and says whether you received goods or services in return.
- Report it yourself. Your custodian reports the whole distribution on Form 1099-R, so on Form 1040 you enter the full amount on the IRA line, put zero on the taxable line if all of it qualified, and mark that line as a QCD (opens in a new tab). The IRS has used both a write-in and a checkbox for that mark, so follow the instructions for the year you file.
Notice 2007-7 spells out the cost of getting it wrong. A payment meant to be a QCD that fails the requirements is treated as a taxable distribution to you, plus an ordinary charitable contribution subject to the usual percentage limits. You would owe tax on money you no longer have.
Sending a QCD to a Veterans charity in Marina
Veterans Transition Center of California is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit at 220 Twelfth Street in Marina, on the historic Fort Ord campus in Monterey County. Since 1996 it has empowered Veterans throughout California to build stable, independent futures. Your custodian will ask for the charity’s legal name and its Employer Identification Number (EIN). Those are Veterans Transition Center of California and 77-0431413, and gifts to it are tax-deductible as allowed by law.
Start with a phone call rather than a form. Call (831) 883-8387 or email info@vtcmonterey.org and say what you are planning, so the gift is expected and the acknowledgment comes back to the right person. The same address handles the planned-giving questions on the Get Involved page, including gifts made through a will, trust, or estate plan. Money that arrives this way pays for the work the campus already does, from transitional and permanent housing for Veterans and their families to a food pantry that sends pet food home with the weekly groceries. VTC counts 1,300 Veterans, service members, and family members served monthly.
One caution before you pick an amount. A deduction for the entire distribution has to be allowable, so a QCD cannot cover a ticket to a fundraising event or anything else that comes back to you. Keep those gifts separate and send them through the donate page like any other. If you are weighing this against a gift of appreciated shares, the arithmetic in our guide to donating stock instead of cash runs on a different rule and often points the same direction.
VTC does not give tax or legal advice. Talk with your tax professional before you decide, and call VTC before the money leaves the account.