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IRA Direct Rollover Gifts
IRA giving can lower Medicare premiums as well as taxable income?
Yes, for those over age 70.5 who are now required to take their RMDs (required minimum distributions) from retirement accounts, the extra income from the RMD could cause an increase in Medicare premiums! In other words: if your age 70.5+ supporter sends his or her RMDs to your charity (you must reach that age to use this law!), they will not only be lowering their taxable income but also possibly lowering their medicare premium costs! (IRA rollover gifts can be used to satisfy RMD requirements!)
Here is a good article on it that goes into the details on the medicare premium issue: http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20170221/BLOG05/170229982/using-iras-to-reduce-medicare-premiums
The point for fundraisers is this: you need to get comfortable with IRAs and the basic retirement planning! IRA rollover gifts can be up to $100,000! Your 70.5 and older donors should already be using it for annual gifts!
Anyway, if you haven’t noticed, I have given several presentation on the new tax plan and will be giving one again TOMORROW 6/13 at NOON EASTERN! Click here to learn more or register (NOTE THAT IT WILL BE RECORDED AND ALL REGISTRANTS WILL RECEIVE THE RECORDING LINK, TOO, EVEN IF YOU REGISTER AFTERWARDS)
Q & A in Planned Giving Tomorrow – IRAs, RMDs, and QCDs – Familiar with these?
Recently, I’ve starting submitting for the Q & A section in Planned Giving Tomorrow – Here’s my first submission….
QUESTION
We are looking at some RMD info related to Jane’s IRA account, and we are assuming that the school satisfies the QCD requirement, but just want to check.
ANSWER
Highly focused people (usually the successful ones) often miss the easy stuff in their focus on the bottom line: raising money now. The question above came to me via email from a top capital campaign consultant. He really knows his stuff. And yet, he had to ask me what RMD and QCD meant!
Do you know?
RMD is Required Minimum Distribution. That is an amount you are required (as an individual over age 70.5) to withdraw from your IRA and other qualified retirement accounts annually.
Why is this so important?
The IRA charitable rollover provision (which is, by the way, PERMANENT now if you hadn’t heard!) allows donors age 70.5 and older to give up to $100,000 to your charity directly from their IRAs. It doesn’t work for other retirement accounts—yet. It just so happens that the law allows donors to direct their RMDs (which would be fully taxable to them) to your charity without any taxes. This assumes your charity is QCD eligible.
You know that one, right? QCD means Qualified Charitable Distributions. If you are a regular charity – not a Donor Advised Fund or a Supporting Organization—you are more than likely QDC eligible. In a nutshell, using the charitable rollover provision gives donors an opportunity to support a cause they care about and avoid taxes on their RMD! Donors in this age range get this. You should, too, as these can be easy $100,000 gifts. Even if your donor has already taken their RMDs (which you can’t un-take), using an IRA to make a gift to charity is still a great idea. Talk it up with your donors!
If you have interesting questions that you wouldn’t mind being published in this blog and/or in Planned Giving Tomorrow, email your Q’s to me at jonathan@plannedgivingadvisors.com. And, check out Planned Giving Tomorrow by clicking here!
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IRA Rollover Giving – IS Your Org Eligible?
Should be an easy question. Except that it isn’t always so clear.
With IRA giving (donors age 70.5+) becoming particularly important in light of the new tax law, your nonprofit may want to read this post carefully.
- Private Foundations and Supporting Organizations are NOT eligible to receive qualified IRA rollover gifts.
- A Supporting Organization (SO) is one which was founded and received its exemption under IRS Code Section 509(a)(3) (there are 3 types of SOs – all are not eligible – not relevant to this post).
Last week, a question came via a client. It was a religious entity upset that they are a SO – what can they do about accepting IRA rollover gifts?
Answer: find out if your organization is definitely an SO or not! Someone may have thought you are one and checked off that box on the 990 or some other form (when, in fact, the org is something else).
First, look at your 990 return – your accountant may have checked off the box saying that you are an SO! DON’T ASSUME THAT IS ACTUALLY THE CASE.
Next, call the IRA tax exempt hotline (pretty short waits) – and ask them what they have you as. AGAIN, DON’T ASSUME THEY ARE CORRECT EITHER.
Next, look at your incorporation documents and preferably a copy of your original IRS form 1023 application for exemption – what do they say?
Incorporation docs and your 1023 rule over anything else (call me if you have a discrepancy between the incorporation docs and your 1023!).
Many times accountants who file the 990s make mistakes and the IRS doesn’t question them. Your organization can go on for years filing under as the wrong type of organization. All the IRS cares about for 990s is that they are filed – not whether they are particularly accurate – as long as the numbers are generally sound.
I am sure there are thousands of nonprofit public charities which are in fact SOs!! If your organization is some sort of subsidiary, controlled by a parent charity (as long as the parent controls the board membership), you might be an SO. SOs were an easy route to gain exemption status by “pigging-backing” on the parent’s exemption (and maintaining control of the subsidiary).
It doesn’t matter if your organization no longer resembles an SO. Until you amend your articles of incorporation and refile your 1023, your org is what it started out as.
Of course, there may be many orgs which think they are SOs – because of an error on the 990s or other mistaken approaches – but are really NOT.
Go back to the beginning. You might be surprised. I had the IRS telling me definitively that a client was an SO. But, I kept digging (no one had the 1023 or articles of incorporation) and eventually figured out that the so-called parent church’s attorney thought they were an SO and told the IRS on one of their forms. They lost their exemption retroactively for not filing 990s (they were actually a religious org that wasn’t required to file 990s). In the IRS’s system – they were switched to an SO and that was it.
Eventually, they got it reversed but some damage was done.
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