President’s Article

By OPA President – Brian Hancock

Charitable Contributions to the OPA Scholarship Fund

As many of you may know, my day job is being a Financial Advisor for Edward Jones. There is usually very little that overlaps between helping individuals with their financial planning needs and being a pilot (other than that the fact that the later typically takes away from the former, haha). But, when reviewing the Oklahoma Pilots Association’s Vic Jackson Memorial Scholarship Fund recently, it occurred to me that I might be able to give some sound financial advice AND help the OPA Scholarship Fund at the same time.

Allow me to tell you about Qualified Charitable Distributions or QCD’s.

QCD’s allow IRA holders to withdraw up to $100,000 annually from their Traditional IRA or Roth IRA and deliver the funds directly to a qualifying charitable organization, resulting in a tax-free distribution that may satisfy the holders Required Minimum Distribution or RMD.

In other words, if you typically give to a charity, or your church, or your (shameless plug) OPA Scholarship Fund, you could use your RMD to make the contribution in a tax-free manner. It is important to note that it must be a direct IRA distribution payable to a qualified charity. This is a great way to help a charity while also helping yourself by not having to pay taxes on the distribution that you are otherwise required to take.