IRA Distributions

Supporting Yale with a gift from your retirement plan offers significant financial and tax benefits. There are many ways to include Yale in your retirement planning, including an IRA Qualified Charitable Distribution or naming Yale as a beneficiary of your IRA.

Contact us at development.plannedgiving@yale.edu or 203.432.5436 to learn more and discuss which kind of gift is right for you.

With a qualified charitable distribution (QCD), individuals who are 70½ or older can direct funds from their traditional IRA directly to Yale, tax free.

Beginning January 1, 2025, you can make annual distributions of up to $108,000 to charities such as Yale. These QCDs may count toward your required minimum distribution. Money given in this way does not count as income for federal tax purposes.

Thanks to the Legacy IRA Act, donors also have a one-time opportunity to use an IRA distribution to fund a life-income gift at Yale. Contact the Office of Planned Giving to learn more.

The combined effect of income and estate taxes that can result from leaving your IRA to family members other than your spouse can exceed 75 percent of the asset’s value. When you name Yale as the beneficiary of your retirement plan, you avoid the double taxation your retirement savings would otherwise incur. Yale, as a qualified 501(c)(3), won’t pay income tax on retirement plan assets, ensuring a more efficient distribution of your estate. Any portion of your retirement plan assets that are given to Yale will also qualify for income tax, inheritance tax, federal and state estate tax deductions.

To name Yale as a beneficiary, contact your IRA or retirement plan administrator and request a copy of the Change of Beneficiary Form. You can fill this in as you wish and include Yale for a portion or all of the remainder of your plan’s assets.