Ashlea Ebeling , FORBES STAFF

Philadelphians Sharmain Matlock-Turner and her husband Tony Turner directed $15,000 from his Individual Retirement Account to three Philly charities this year: the Painted Bride Arts Center, the Greene Street Friends School where their grandson is a student, and the Urban Affairs Coalition where Matlock-Turner is president and chief executive. “We make charitable contributions every year,” she says. “This was a new way for us to do that.”

It's called the charitable IRA rollover. It's a tax planning strategy for donors giving anywhere from $100 to $100,000 that was made a permanent part of the tax law in 2016. Now, the big changes in the tax cuts bill before Congress will make it even more relevant as millions of Americans will take the increased standard deduction and lose the incentive to itemize their taxes, including charitable deductions. “More people will want to do the IRA charitable rollover,” says Bob Waskiewicz, a CPA and financial planner at Wescott Financial Advisory Group who showed the Turners why it makes sense for them. “It has real tax planning benefits,” he says.

Retirees are a charitable lot, giving more to charity, as a percentage of their incomes, than younger Americans. So, it's fitting that Congress has created a special tax break just for older donors. More...