Gifting doesn’t have to be a year-end scramble. In this video, Parker G. Trasborg, CFP® and David D. Greene, CFP® walk through tax-smart ways to support family and charities while planning intentionally for 2026.
Introduction: Why January Is the Right Time to Plan Gifting Strategies
Parker G. Trasborg:
Hi, I am Parker Trasborg, a Principal at CJM Wealth Advisers, and I’m joined today by our CEO and fellow principal David Green. With the holidays behind us and the start of the new year here in 2026 we wanted to take a few minutes just to talk about some gifting strategies. Gifting doesn’t always have to be something you’re scrambling to do in November and December around the holidays, and actually now is kind of the perfect time to start to think about it as some of these strategies can be a little bit more complex and take some time to get squared away. So Dave, starting with the basics, what are the gifting limits here in 2026?
2026 Annual Federal Gift Tax Exclusion Limits
David D. Greene:
Yeah, Parker. So when we think gifting, oftentimes we think about gifting to adult kids or grandkids, and that’s kind of around the annual exclusion gift limit, which for 2026 is $19,000 per person. So for a married couple they could give each adult child up to about $38,000, which is a pretty significant amount of money. So that’s certainly one basic concept when you’re doing the planning that you were talking about, the threshold that you can kind of target.
Lifetime Gift and Estate Tax Exemption and Special Gifting Rules
Parker G. Trasborg:
Yeah, I mean, like you said, it is a very decent gift to a kid, child, sibling, anyone really, but if you go above that limit, it may require you to file a gift tax return, which isn’t necessarily the worst thing in the world. It just starts to eat against your $15 million per person lifetime exemption, which for, I mean most people out there, that’s not going to really be a problem at all. It’s just a little bit of extra paperwork to go ahead and file that tax return. And if you are paying for medical bills or tuition, you can actually pay those directly to the institution and it doesn’t even count towards that $19,000 or $38,000 gift exemption limit. So Dave, if I wanted to give money to a charity rather than to another person, what options do I have there?
Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs) From IRAs
David D. Greene:
Yeah, we were throwing around some big numbers there, so I think we want to start with the idea that continue to give your $25 $50 checks to the organizations that you care about. In addition to that, we have and can talk to clients about strategies. One particular strategy for our clients who have reached required minimum distribution age is called qualified charitable distributions or QCDs. And essentially when you reach age 70, 75, depending on your date of birth, you have to start taking distributions from your IRA. Many of our clients do not need those distributions, so they can take all or a portion and either via check or a third party check request, they can send from their CJM Pershing IRA to these charities contributions. And the biggest benefit there is they don’t have to pay taxes on those distributions. So a quick, for instance, if my RMD was $50,000 on my IRA this year, I could take $30,000 of that and send it $10,000 to three different charities that I care about and I wouldn’t have to pay taxes on that $30,000 portion, which is a pretty significant tax savings and the charity benefits.
Charitable Giving Options Before RMD Age
Parker G. Trasborg:
Yeah, it’s a huge benefit. And Jessica Ness and I actually did a video all about QCDs just a couple years ago and we’ll go ahead and link that to the video that we’re recording today. If I’m not of RMD age 70 and a half or above, what other options do I have to give some gifts to charities?
Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs) for Strategic Charitable Giving
David D. Greene:
Good question. I think we’re kind of raising the bar as far as complexity as we go through this conversation. Another concept strategy that doesn’t fit all of our client situations, but for some people the idea of a donor-advised fund could make a lot of sense. The acronym there is DAF and a DAF enables people to make a pretty sizable charitable contribution all in one year without having to choose the amounts or the charities to receive those gifts all in that year. So let me explain a little bit, maybe with a case study, one of the big benefits is you can, if you’re having a big income year because there was a business sale or you had some big bonuses and say that you wanted to make a hundred thousand dollars charitable contribution, but you didn’t want to give it to all these organizations all at once, you wanted to think about it, you could put it into the DAF and get credit for that hundred thousand dollars contribution.
There’s some thresholds that we’ll talk about with your CPA, but you essentially get the charitable contribution deduction all in one year and then you can grant over time, 5, 10, 20 years portions of that money from the donor advised fund. So the tax benefits are the upfront tax deduction, significant. You can actually use highly appreciated assets like stocks you’ve held for years that have high unrealized gains can be the mechanism of the gift. So you save on taxes there and then you have a very coordinated strategic way to gift /grant to charitable organizations for you and for even your next generation over decades.
Above-the-Line Charitable Deductions Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act
Parker G. Trasborg:
Yeah, it is really a good way to try to limit that tax exposure in what could be a very large tax year for people and not have to give all that money to one charity at one time and spread it out, as you said.
So one other small little tweak that happened in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) that passed last summer, Congress did include a provision that if you are not itemizing your deductions and filing the standard deduction, which is what a lot of people are doing at this point, you can now give up to a $1,000 to charity, $2,000 for married filing jointly and have that actually count on your taxes as well and be a little above the line deduction there, which is a nice little perk.
Closing Thoughts: Aligning Gifting With Your Financial Plan
That’s all the time we have today. I know we covered some pretty complex topics here and we can dig into those a bit more at a later point. If you have any questions about anything that Dave and I talked about today, feel free to email one of us directly or email your planner directly, and we’re happy to kind of run you through some various scenarios that might be able to help for you and your family. We wish you all well and thank you so much for joining us today, and thank you, Dave for joining me today as well. Bye-bye.
QCD video: https://www.cjmltd.com/qualified-charitable-distributions-qcds/
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