Help America By Helping Vote Smart: A Tax-wise Window of Opportunity

With the 2008 Election Season swinging into high gear earlier than ever before, and campaigns shattering fundraising records, the battle against the misinformation coming from these campaigns is more important than ever. Obviously, the most important way that you can help to stop the "spin" from these campaigns is to be informed about the candidates running for office, and let others know about Project Vote Smart so that they can be informed as well. However, there is an new way that you can help to support the goals of Project Vote Smart.

If you are age 70 ½, have a traditional or Roth IRA, and want to help Project Vote Smart with an extra donation in 2007, consider this: Congress passed the "Pension Protection Act of 2006," which created a very attractive way of giving to charity from your IRA, but only for the tax years of 2006 and 2007.

Unfortunately, we did not find out about this until March 2007, when it was brought to our attention by one of our members, Julian Babad, of Tucson, who plans to take advantage of the Act's provisions this year to give a generous donation to the Project from his IRA. Julian urged us to share the following information with our members, in case some of you are able to follow his lead before the end of 2007.

The Act applies only to taxpayers who are 70 ½ years old and therefore required to make minimum distribution from their IRAs. This Charitable IRA rollover ...

Read More