Clear Money Guide
What this guide covers
A quick view of the questions and evidence developed below.
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Updated July 28, 2026. Quick answer: A qualified charitable distribution may be made from age 70½, while the required beginning age for distributions is 73. That leaves roughly two and a half years in which a QCD is available and there is no required distribution for it to offset — a window most coverage misses entirely, because it treats the two ages as the same event.
Two different ages, two different purposes
| Age | What becomes true |
|---|---|
| 70½ | You may make a QCD |
| 73 | Required distributions begin |
What the window is actually good for. A QCD in those years does not satisfy an RMD, because there is no RMD yet. What it does is move money out of the IRA without it ever appearing in your income — which permanently shrinks the balance that later RMDs are computed on, and does so without the distribution counting toward any income-tested threshold along the way. For someone already giving to charity, giving from the IRA in those years rather than from taxable accounts is close to a free improvement.
Plan the withdrawal, not just the minimum
A required distribution is the floor rather than the plan, and an adviser can look at how the withdrawal interacts with your bracket, your Medicare premiums and your other accounts before a deadline decides it for you.
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Why it beats a deduction
A QCD never enters adjusted gross income at all. That is different from, and better than, a deduction — particularly now, with a 0.5% floor and a cap on the benefit of itemized deductions both reducing what a deduction is worth. A QCD sidesteps both, because there is nothing to deduct.
The annual QCD cap is indexed, so the amount printed in the statute is not the current one. And note the one destination that does not work: an IRA distribution to a donor-advised fund is not a QCD.
No dollar figures appear here, and that is deliberate. The QCD annual cap is inflation-indexed and the figure printed in IRC §408(d)(8)(A) is the original un-indexed amount, which the statute will keep reciting forever. AGI ceilings are percentages, not amounts. Take current dollar limits from the IRS for the year in question, never from an article.
Sources
IRC §170(b)(1)(A), (b)(1)(C), (b)(1)(D), (b)(1)(G), (b)(1)(I) and (d)(1); §170(e)(1) and (e)(5); §170(f)(11) (appraisal); §68 as amended; §408(d)(8) (qualified charitable distributions); §4966(d)(2) (donor-advised funds); §664(d)(1) and (d)(2) (charitable remainder trusts). Amendments from P.L. 119-21. IRS Publication 505 (2026) for the 0.5% floor’s first application year. All read July 2026.
This states what the cited authority says. It is not tax advice, and retirement-plan design turns on facts about your business and your other entities that no page can see. Every dollar limit referenced here is indexed and changes annually.
Related
Other ways the same gift can be structured: charitable lead trusts — the structure that pays the charity first.