The Pension Protection Act of 2006, as made permanent in 2016, allows individuals over the age of 70½ to make a direct charitable distribution of up to $100,000 per calendar year from an IRA to a qualified donee organization. These distributions must be transferred directly from the custodian of the IRA account to the donee organization.

When a charity receives an IRA distribution, the following steps should be followed:

• The charity should provide a written acknowledgement to the IRA custodian indicating that the contribution came directly from the custodian of the IRA.

• The custodian of the IRA account is required to issue to the owner of the IRA account a Form 1099-R. The distribution to the charity should be reflected in Box 1 as a “Gross distribution” but it should not be included in Box 2a as a “Taxable amount.”

• The charity should not include the rollover amount in the charity’s charitable gift acknowledgment issues to the donor. Instead, the charity should send a letter of acknowledgment to the donor stating that the charity has received an IRA distribution, including the amount, from the donor’s IRA custodian.

The value of the IRA rollover may be applied against a donor’s pledge.
 

Sample Acknowledgment

                          Receipt #249

Giver:                                 Bailey L. Ray
                                           3927 Sunset Drive
                                           Venice, CA 90291

IRA Administrator:          Star Retirement
                                           356 Wall St
                                           New York, NY 10005

Cash received:

       Received on December 18, 20__                   $3000.00

Thank you for this generous gift from your Individual Retirement Account (IRA). We received this gift directly from your IRA Administrator. If this is a qualified charitable deduction from your IRA, it may be excludable from your normal taxable income. However, if you exclude this distribution from income you should not also claim a charitable deduction for this distribution. Even though this gift may not be eligible as a charitable contribution deduction this document is necessary to retain for your federal income tax purposes.

No goods or services were received in exchange for this contribution. We can also confirm your gift was not transferred to a donor advised fund or a supporting organization.

We recommend that you retain this document for your tax records.

Receipt issued on:  January 5, 20__

Receipt issued by:     Hank Gill, Treasurer
                                    First Baptist Church
                                    1008 Ocean Ave
                                    Santa Monica, CA 90402

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