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CoastMath models three kinds of giving. Direct cash gifts and donor-advised fund contributions are paid from checking, savings and then taxable brokerage, and count toward your itemized deductions up to 60% of AGI, less a floor of 0.5% of AGI. Direct gifts can instead be deducted without itemizing, up to a small fixed cap. Either kind can instead be paid with appreciated shares from a brokerage account, whose gain is never taxed and whose deduction is limited to 30% of AGI.
Qualified charitable distributions go straight from a traditional IRA to charity. They count toward that year’s required distribution and are left out of income, so they are never deducted.
Each gift has a giving type, an annual amount and optional start and end milestones. The full amount is given in every year from the year the start milestone is reached up to, but not including, the year the end milestone is reached. There is no partial-year proration.
Direct gifts and fund contributions are paid in cash from checking first, then savings, then taxable brokerage accounts, whatever your drawdown order. They never come from retirement accounts. The part brokerage would cover is paid from the year’s leftover income first, so a year with a surplus sells nothing. Only the part the year can’t cover sells brokerage holdings, which realizes a share of the account’s gains, like any other brokerage withdrawal. If those accounts can’t cover the full amount, CoastMath gives what they hold, warns you, and deducts only what was paid.
A contribution to a donor-advised fund leaves your plan when it’s made. The fund’s balance and its later grants aren’t tracked.
- Itemized limit
- 60%
- of AGI, for cash to public charities and donor-advised funds
- Itemized floor
- 0.5%
- of AGI, subtracted from the allowed amount
- Deduction without itemizing
- $1,000 / $2,000
- Single / married filing jointly; direct gifts only; not indexed
- Carryforward
- 5 years
- For amounts above the 60% limit
Itemized charitable deduction=the smaller of(this year’s gifts + carryforward)and60% × AGI−0.5% × AGI
AGI is the year’s final AGI, after withdrawals, conversions and capital gains, and after any QCD exclusion.
CoastMath then adds your other itemized deductions and itemizes only if the total beats the standard deduction plus the non-itemizer charitable deduction you would give up. When you don’t itemize, direct gifts up to the cap are deducted on top of the standard deduction; fund contributions don’t qualify.
| Contribution in 2026 | $70,000 | |
|---|---|---|
| → | Limit: 60% of AGI | $60,000 |
| − | Floor: 0.5% of AGI | $500 |
| = | Itemized charitable deduction, 2026 | $59,500 |
| → | Carried forward to 2027 | $10,000 |
| − | Floor in 2027 | $500 |
| = | Charitable deduction if itemizing, 2027Below the $16,100 standard deduction, so the standard deduction is used | $9,500 |
The $10,000 carryforward is used up in 2027 even though the standard deduction wins, as the tax rules require. A second $30,000 contribution in 2027 would instead be deducted together with it: $39,500.
Carryforward order
Each year’s gifts use the 60% limit first; carried amounts then fill the remaining room, oldest first, and expire after five years. A year you take the standard deduction still uses up whatever would have fit.
- Annual limit per IRA owner
- $111,000
- Grows with your plan’s inflation assumption in later years
- Eligible from
- Age 70½
- Traditional IRAs only
A QCD entry is a household amount. CoastMath splits it across IRA owners who are eligible that year, each up to the annual limit. An owner born January–June is eligible from the year they turn 70; one born July–December, from the year they turn 71. For each owner, the gift is taken from that year’s required distribution first, then from their remaining traditional IRA balance. A 401(k) can’t make a QCD.
Up to the required distribution
The QCD replaces that part of the required distribution. It’s excluded from income and the cash you receive from the distribution falls by the same amount.
Beyond the required distribution
An extra, untaxed IRA withdrawal goes to charity. It doesn’t reduce taxable income from other sources.
| Required distribution$500,000 ÷ 24.6, the distribution period at 75 | $20,325 | |
|---|---|---|
| − | QCD, taken from the required distribution | $15,000 |
| = | Taxable part of the distribution | $5,325 |
| + | Pension | $40,000 |
| = | AGIWithout the QCD: $60,325 | $45,325 |
With a $30,000 QCD instead, the whole $20,325 distribution and $9,675 more from the IRA go to charity, and AGI is the $40,000 pension.
Before an owner is eligible, a QCD entry does nothing for them; it isn’t turned into a cash gift. See Required minimum distributions for how the distribution itself is set.
Each gift appears in the year’s cash flow under its name, and QCDs as QCD to charity. Flexible spending rules never reduce them. The deduction and whether you itemized appear with the year’s tax detail; see Itemized deductions.