Can you send your IRA RMD straight to charity to avoid taxes?
You can direct your IRA custodian to send your required minimum distribution straight to a charity as a qualified charitable distribution to avoid paying income tax on it, though this does not work for 401k accounts or donor-advised funds. Doing this allows you to satisfy your RMD without triggering constructive receipt of the taxable income.
Overview
People affected3 accounts across 1 forum
Workarounds found1 item attempted
Community agreement3 total upvotes
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
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- 1Rollover parts or all of a 401k into an IRA to qualify for direct charitable distributionsDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
r/personalfinance3 people · September 2026
Where this came up
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