Jeffrey D. Byrne
President + CEO
On December 16, the Senate approved a one-year tax extenders bill that includes the charitable IRA rollover for 2014. The White House has indicated President Obama will sign the bill whose provisions expire December 31, 2014, soon. The fight for a permanent tax incentive for charitable IRA rollovers will continue into 2015, but if the President signs this bill, qualified donors who have made or want to make a gift through an IRA rollover in 2014 will benefit.
The charitable IRA rollover, enacted in 2006, encourages older Americans to give out of their Individual Retirement Accounts. IRA owners age 70-1/2 or older can donate up to $100,000 to qualified charities directly from their IRA without treating the distribution as taxable income. The gift from an individual IRA counts toward the annual Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) and aids donors in avoiding and reducing taxes.
This retroactive extension is important to donors who donate a portion of their IRA distribution each year. Consider promoting this opportunity to your donors before it expires:
- Contact your donors who were waiting on this provision and let them know that the tax extension has been approved and is awaiting the President’s signature. Encourage them to be ready to make this gift as soon as it is signed by President Obama. The deadline to make gifts is December 31.
- Send out an email update to all of your donors: notifying them about the approval of the tax extension for 2014 and serving as a reminder to those who are eligible to make a charitable IRA rollover gift by year-end. For those who have not reached their RMD for 2014, they can easily do so with this type of gift, avoiding tax implications.
The on-again, off-again tax incentive was created in 2006. The 2006 legislation expired in 2007 only to be extended again in the fall of 2008 retroactively from the first day of 2008 to the last day of 2009. It expired again in 2009 only to be extended in December 2010, retroactively to January 2010 through December 2011. It expired again in 2011 only to be revived in late 2012 for the 2012 and 2013 calendar years.
For the first time, the legislation is only retroactive and does not allow for donors to plan for the coming tax year. The new year (2015) is the time to break this cycle and create a permanent tax incentive to allow older Americans to include the IRA Charitable Rollover in their year-round giving plans.
During the coming year, please reach out to your Congressional Representatives and U. S. Senators to let them know of the positive impact the charitable IRA rollover has had on your organization. Keeping elected officials informed on the positive impact of legislation within their district is critical to persuading Congress to pass a permanent version of this proven charitable giving incentive.
About JB+A:
Jeffrey Byrne + Associates, Inc. is a nationally-recognized fundraising and financial development firm that specializes in building organizational capacity and conducting major gift, capital and endowment campaigns solely for nonprofit organizations. Led by founder and President + CEO Jeffrey Byrne, its team of consultants has successfully guided more than 300 nonprofit organizations through campaigns raising more than $1,000,000,000.
Jeffrey Byrne + Associates is committed to nonprofit fundraising success and serves a broad spectrum of clients throughout the United States, across all subsectors of the industry: arts and culture, education, environment, faith-based, healthcare, senior living and social services. Visit FundraisingJBA.com for more information.
