Last week, I gave a presentation at the Planned Giving Council of Greater Philadelphia and was treated a luncheon presentation by Laura Peebles, http://www.laurahpeebles.com/, one of the top tax experts regarding charitable giving in the country.
And, to my relief, Laura addressed the issue of the now expired IRA charitable giving provision – in the same way I have been advising for awhile now. No, she did not know if or when it might be reenacted. But, she did have some advice. Tell your donors/prospects that they should go ahead and make gifts directly from their IRAs to charities of their choice (donors age 70.5+ and up to $100,000). Call your plan administrators and ask to make a direct transfer to charity. If the law is reenacted, your gift qualifies. If it doesn’t, virtually no harm – donor gets an offsetting deduction. (charities, communicate this to your donors and be on top of the potential need to send deduction letters once the year closes if the law doesn’t make it).
In other words, tell your donors to go for it. Now is the time as your donors are now getting ready to take their required minimum distributions. Let those distributions go to the charity of their choice and hopefully, the gifts will qualify but no harm done if not.