Charitable gifts and RMD tracking and reporting

Grandaddy42

I use Quicken Classic Business and Personal ver r54.16 (aka Home and Business) on Windows 10.

I track my "after tax" charitable gifts in Quicken using a charitable giving category. I have my SEP plan administrator send a portion of my year-end RMD as a charitable distribution directly to a charity.

Because I don't receive the charitable portion of the RMD, that is paid directly to the charity, I don't know how to set it up so that the whole RMD amount shows us a gross income and the charitable RMD shows up in my Quicken as giving and is included in my income and spending reports properly.

Any help would be appreciated!

q_lurker

Because I don't receive the charitable portion of the RMD, that is paid directly to the charity, I don't know how to set it up so that the whole RMD amount shows us a gross income and the charitable RMD shows up in my Quicken as giving and is included in my income and spending reports properly.

I see two contradictory aspects here. On one hand, for tax purposes, that part of your RMD is not taxable gross income and that amount sent to the charity is not a (tax deductible) charitable gift.

On the other hand, it is reasonable for you to want a broader picture that recognizes such non-taxable’income’ and such gifts.

The advice elsewhere on these pages regarding Qualified Charitable Distributions seems right to me for the tax side — sell whatever in the SEP IRA and record a check to the charity from that account. You may want a separate category for QCD charitable contributions.

For the bigger picture, I would not look at RMDs as income. I would go at those income and expense reports looking at all accounts and not including transfers between accounts.