Qualified Charitable Distributions QCD question

Submitted by Rusty Nelson on Tue, 2018-01-30 14:34

I made a QCD from my wife’s traditional IRA in 2017 and one from my own traditional IRA. We both have to take MRD’s from our IRAs as we are over 70 1/2. There is a spot on the 1099 R to enter the QCD for each of our MRD’s. My question is: Is there some supporting documentation or form needed to backup the QCD amount in the 1099 R box? I can’t believe the IRS would just allow a person to enter an amount in the box for a QCD without any additional information needed to support it.
Thanks for any help with this.



Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Tue, 2018-01-30 16:14

  • I think you must be looking at a 1099R in your tax program, not the actual 1099R you received from the IRA custodian, since there are no IRS codes or instructions for the custodian to code or otherwise report a QCD check. To your question, a QCD has the same requirements to secure a contemporaneous written acknowledgement of your check by the tax deadline (see Sec 170(f)(8)) for any amount over 250, just as if you donated to them from your other funds. If you are audited and do not have this, your QCD could be disallowed.
  • Now that the QCD has been made permanent, it seems like the IRS should  consider adding a box to the  1099R to do what I think your tax program is doing, that is indicate the amount of QCD checks issued as a sub total of the total distribution. That would reduce tax leakage in this area. And QCDs will become even more popular now that the standard deduction has been increased enough such that the number of seniors itemizing could be cut in half.

Submitted by Rusty Nelson on Tue, 2018-01-30 17:12

Thanks Alan for the response.  There was nothing on the TD Ameritrade 1099-R showing the QCD they sent to our church, just the gross MRD amount.  So you are saying that I don’t need to submit any proof of the QCD with my tax forms when I file, but need to have proof of the contribution if audited – correct?

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