Turns age 70.5 next year

[John Feldt ERPA CPC QPA]

A friend of ours turns 70.5 next year. They want to know if they will be able to make a direct payment from their IRA to a religious charity. Was that rule extended? If so, was it only temporary? How does it work or benefit the IRA holder?

[Bird]

I don't think it was extended. For most people, there was no marginal benefit when compared to simply taking a regular distribution and then donating the same amount to charity (i.e. the deduction wipes out the income). There could have been some cases where doing the direct transfer might have avoided a phase-out of some credit or other, but I'll bet 95% (or more) of the people who used this could have accomplished the same end by taking a distribution and then making a donation as a two step process.

[Guest Sieve]

Those with insufficient income to support the full deduction found it useful. Also, the transfer permitted the floors for misc. and medical deductions (as a percentage of AGI) to be calculated without including the IRA distribution in incom.

To the best of my knowledge, you're correct that it has not been extended beyond 12/31/2009

[John Feldt ERPA CPC QPA]

They don't expect to have enough deductions to itemize. Thanks for the info!