Another Option of Charitable Giving
Did you know you can give to our Fellowship is through your IRA? For those over 70 1/2 (when you are required to start taking funds from your traditional IRAs), you can give donations to charities by having your IRA manager provide funds directly from your Traditional (not Roth) IRA and it will not count as income, giving you a nice tax break. A check is made out from your IRA account to the charity, such as the UUFEC, and it can either be mailed directly to that charity or mailed to you to be sent to the charity with a cover letter or form identifying what the funds are specifically for.

Why do this? The amount you give is not counted as income, reducing your taxable income. Also, for 2018 and probably the upcoming years, the IRS Standard Deduction has been doubled to $12,000 for individuals, $18,000 for Head of Households, and $24,000 for couples.
The means that members who used to itemize deductions — were you would have listed your charitable donations – are less likely to continue this and thus will no longer get a tax credit for giving.

Who can do this? You must be 70 1/2 or older when you have to start taking a Required Minimum Distribution (RMS) of funds out of your traditional IRAs. You can then give from your IRA(s) to any of the charities you wish and the total is not counted as income. By the way, you can give up to $100,000 (each person!) to charities in this manner. Wow, don’t you wish!

I know this sounds a bit complicated, but it really isn’t. For us retirees who may not have a lot of deductions and especially with the doubled Standard Deduction, this is a great deal for us.

If you have any questions, either contact your IRA manager, check on line for Charity giving using IRAs, or contact me – I can give you a bit more info, but I”m not by anyway an expert. Just a user of this approach.

Denny Lauer
kdlauer2@gmail.com