RMD as Charitable Contributions

[Lou S.]

Elderly client got check books mixed up and wrote a $10,000 charitable contribution from the profit sharing account.

I seem to recall charitable contributions could be made from IRAs (up to $100,000), but that the legislation trying to extend it to qualifed plans never went anywhere. I also seem to recall that provision also was set to expire for IRAs but can find the year of expiration. IRS Pub 590 for 2009 indicates it was still in effect for 2009.

Questions

1. Am I right this is not allowed in qualified plans?

2. Can it be treated as a taxable distribution of $10,000 from the qualified plan and then a $10,000 charitable contribution for her accountant to deal with on Schedule A of her 1040?

Any thoughts are appreciated.

[masteff]

Current Pub 590 on the IRS site shows it expired for 2010. And Pub 526 shows it as only for IRAs prior to its expiration.

So the correct result is your #2... it counts as taxable income and is then taken as a charitable contribution on Sch A. As a reminder, generally speaking charitable deductions in excess of 50% of AGI are not deductible in the current year but are carried forward to next year.

[Lou S.]

Thanks.