Certain owners of individual retirement arrangements (IRAs) may be eligible to make tax-free transfers to charity.

IRA owners age 70½ or older have until Wednesday, Dec. 31 to make a direct transfer of part or all of their IRA distributions to an eligible charity.

The Tax Increase Prevention Act, enacted Dec. 19, extended for 2014 the provision authorizing these qualified charitable distributions (QCDs). The provision had expired at the end of 2013. With this retroactive renewal, any eligible IRA distribution during 2014 properly transferred to a qualified charity counts as a QCD.

As a result, older IRA owners may have a different way to give to charity and amounts transferred to a charity from an IRA are counted in determining whether the owner has met the IRA’s required minimum distribution (RMD).

Read more on the IRS website. 

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