The IRA charitable rollover legislation passed by Congress was signed by the President on December 18, 2015. This law extended the IRA charitable rollover retroactively for 2015, and made it permanent with no expiration date for future years.

What this means for believers who are 70½ and older is that going forward you may make a direct transfer from your Individual Retirement Account (IRA) to the National Spiritual Assembly of up to $100,000 per year as a non-taxable event. There is, of course, no additional deduction allowed for this transfer. Now that the IRA charitable rollover has no expiration date, donors age 70½ and older will have the ability to plan their IRA distributions with the knowledge that the charitable IRA rollover is available as a benefit to the National Baha'i Fund, and a tax savings benefit for themselves.

In order to participate in the IRA Charitable Rollover the following criterion must be met:

*The donor must be at least 70½ years of age when the gift is made
*The transfer must be made directly from the IRA administrator to the National Spiritual Assembly
*The gifts from the IRA cannot exceed $100,000 per person ($200,000 total for a couple with separate IRAs) in a given year
*The direct transfer must be an outright gift (you cannot fund a charitable gift annuity with these funds)