QCD or Check in 2026: a $5,000 Gift Straight From Your IRA Saves $276 to $990 in Federal Tax, Depending on Your Social Security and Whether You Itemize

If you are 70½ or older and give to charity, your IRA can pay the charity directly. That is a qualified charitable distribution, and the usual advice is that it beats a check. For 2026 the claim needs a number put on it, because the rules around a check changed in July 2025: itemized gifts now count only above 0.5% of AGI, a taxpayer who does not itemize can deduct up to $1,000 ($2,000 joint) of cash gifts instead of $300 ($600), and the new $6,000 senior deduction shrinks as income rises. This guide runs the same gift both ways for four retired households, using the engine behind the QCD calculator, and shows where a QCD is worth a lot, where it is worth almost nothing, and why.

What is being compared

In each case the retiree was going to take an IRA distribution anyway (an amount that includes the required minimum distribution) and wants to give $5,000 of it to a public charity. Route one is the QCD: the trustee pays the charity, the $5,000 counts toward the required distribution (Publication 590-B) and is left out of income (26 U.S.C. 408(d)(8)). Route two is a check: the whole distribution is taxable, and the retiree writes a check for the gift and deducts it if the rules allow. Because both routes end with the same IRA balance and the same gift, the difference in federal tax is the whole difference. The households are illustrations, not averages (no survey was used to pick them), and each has the standard deduction plus the additional amount for age 65 unless it itemizes:

• Single, small Social Security. Social Security $24,000, pension and interest $15,000, IRA distribution $25,000, taxes paid $6,000.
• Single, mid-sized Social Security. Social Security $36,000, pension and interest $25,000, IRA distribution $40,000, taxes paid $6,000.
• Single, itemizes. No Social Security, other income $120,000, IRA distribution $50,000, state and local taxes $35,000, mortgage interest $12,000.
• Married couple, Social Security. Both 65 or older, Social Security $52,000, pension and interest $40,000, one IRA distribution of $60,000, taxes paid $9,000.

Federal tax saved by a QCD, by gift size

* With a check of this size the household would itemize instead of taking the standard deduction. Tax is the bracket tax on ordinary income at 2026 rates, before credits, state tax and capital-gains rates; the Social Security benefit is taxed by Publication 915's Worksheet 1.

Why a $1,000 gift hardly matters, and why Social Security changes that

A taxpayer who does not itemize can deduct up to $1,000 of cash gifts ($2,000 joint) on top of the standard deduction from 2026 (26 U.S.C. 170(p)). So a check of $1,000 or less already gets the full deduction, and the couple's $1,000 gift saves $0 by QCD. The same applies to a $2,000 gift from a joint return. Above the allowance, a QCD pulls ahead by about the bracket rate times the part of the gift the allowance did not cover.

The first household shows the exception. Its Social Security is only partly taxed, so each dollar of IRA income it avoids also removes 85 cents of benefits from taxable income. A $1,000 QCD lowers AGI by $1,850 and saves $102 even though a $1,000 check would have earned the whole allowance. At $5,000 the QCD lowers AGI by $9,250, cutting the taxed part of the benefit from $19,800 to $15,550: $1.85 of AGI per dollar given, the most a QCD can do, because the share of benefits that can be taxed never exceeds 85%. A deduction, unlike a QCD, lowers taxable income but not AGI, so it cannot do this: the tax on benefits is figured from AGI before any deduction.

The second household already has the 85% maximum of its benefits taxed ($30,600) with or without the gift, so a $5,000 QCD lowers AGI by exactly $5,000. The saving of $946 is the 22% bracket on $4,300 of taxable income: the $4,000 of the gift that the $1,000 allowance does not cover, plus $300 of senior deduction that comes back because AGI is lower (it is cut by 6 cents per dollar of income over $75,000). As a share of the gift it is 1.3% at $1,000, 18.9% at $5,000 and 21.1% at $10,000: it approaches the 22% bracket rate as the gift outgrows the allowance, helped by the senior deduction.

If you itemize, the QCD is worth much less

The third household pays $35,000 of state and local taxes and $12,000 of mortgage interest, so it itemizes with or without a gift, and the gift is deductible from the first dollar above the 0.5% floor: of a $5,000 check, $850 (0.5% of its $170,000 of AGI) does not count and $4,150 does. The QCD only saves what the floor costs plus the small extra senior deduction from the lower AGI: $276 on $5,000 (5.5%), and $451 on $20,000 (2.3%). For someone who itemizes and has no Social Security to move, the reasons to prefer a QCD are practical (it counts toward the required distribution, and it does not depend on staying above the standard deduction year to year), not the tax saved on one gift.

The two Social Security households switch to itemizing when the check is big enough: at $20,000 the first household would itemize with a check, and the second would too ($25,522 of itemized deductions against $19,150 on the standard route with the $1,000 gift allowance). Their QCD savings still rise ($3,124 and $3,329), but as a share of the gift they fall.

The Medicare line, two years later

Medicare charges more for Part B and Part D when income two years earlier is over a line, and income there is AGI plus tax-exempt interest. The lines for 2026 start at $109,000 for a single filer ($218,000 joint); the first surcharge is $81.20 a month for Part B and $14.50 for Part D, $1,148.40 a year (CMS fact sheet). A single retiree with $36,000 of Social Security, $40,000 of other income and a $40,000 IRA distribution has income of $110,600 if the $5,000 gift goes by check, $1,600 over the line. By QCD it is $105,600, under it. Federal tax is $946 lower and, if the 2026 lines still apply to 2028 premiums, the surcharge of $1,148.40 for that year goes away. The lines are indexed, so the 2028 ones will differ, and whether a particular gift crosses one depends on income that this guide cannot know; the Medicare IRMAA calculator shows how much room is left under yours.

Doing it, and what can go wrong

• The trustee has to pay the charity. The statute defines a QCD as a distribution "made directly by the trustee" to the charity (408(d)(8)(B)). Money you receive first and then give is an ordinary distribution and a gift. Ask your IRA custodian how it pays charities; the rules for this are theirs and the charity's.
• Age 70½, not 73 or 75. A QCD is allowed from the day you turn 70½, which is earlier than the age at which required distributions begin; a QCD before then lowers the IRA but does not count toward any requirement yet.
• Keep the acknowledgment. Publication 590-B says you need the same acknowledgment you would need for a deductible gift. You cannot also deduct the gift (408(d)(8)(E)), and the limit is $111,000 per person for 2026 (IRS Notice 2025-67).
• Donor-advised funds do not qualify, nor do private foundations or supporting organizations. A gift to a fund is a deductible gift, not a QCD, and it does not earn the non-itemizer allowance either.
• Deducted IRA contributions after 70½ reduce the exclusion. See the calculator's FAQ for Publication 590-B's worksheet and its example.

What this guide leaves out

Four households do not describe everyone; the calculator takes your own numbers. Not modelled: gifts of appreciated stock (a different comparison, and a way to give without drawing on the IRA), basis in the IRA, the one-time gift to a charitable trust or gift annuity ($55,000 for 2026), qualified dividends and capital gains (this tax is the ordinary bracket tax), the alternative minimum tax, married filing separately, state tax (not checked: some states may not follow the federal exclusion), and 2027 and later rules (the senior deduction ends after 2028). The 2026 Schedule A and its instructions are not published yet; the rules come from the statute as amended by Public Law 119-21 and the 2025 forms. Estimates, not tax advice: confirm the amounts with your IRA custodian and the return you file, or a tax professional.