Benefit from Tax-Free IRA Gifts

The IRA rollover option may provide you with the opportunity to support Cooper Union and other public charities with gifts from your IRA assets while avoiding the normal tax on IRA withdrawals.

Since you must follow specific rules in order to benefit from this rollover option, you should contact your own tax advisors to learn how the rules may affect your particular tax situation.

Here's how it works:

  • You must be 70½ years of age or older.
  • You may distribute any amount up to $100,000 in 2011.
  • Your IRA rollover gifts must be made outright to qualified charities from a traditional IRA or a Roth IRA.
  • The transfer must go directly from your IRA to qualified charities; gifts to donor advised funds, private foundations, and supporting organizations are not eligible.
  • The amount rolled over from your IRA will be excluded from your gross income.
  • Your IRA rollover will count toward your minimum distribution requirement.
  • There is no federal income tax deduction for the IRA rollover gift.
  • The IRA rollover provision is effective now through December 31, 2011.
  • If you make a gift to The Cooper Union, please include written instructions on how you want to designate your gift by calling (212) 353-4172 or emailing dlippman@cooper.edu with your gift designation.  You might consider:
    • Establishing a permanent endowment for financial aid for a minimum of $25,000.
    • Adding to an existing endowment at Cooper Union with an IRA distribution of any amount.
    • Designating your IRA gift of any amount to support the Annual Fund or the Building Fund.

The new tax-free IRA rollover option may be especially attractive to:

  • Donors who do not itemize their deductions
  • Donors required to take minimum withdrawals from their IRAs but don't need that income currently
  • Donors whose income level causes the phase-out of their exemptions
  • Donors already giving at their 50% deduction limit
  • Donors for whom additional income will cause more of their Social Security income to be taxed

How to Make an IRA Gift

Making a tax-free gift from your IRA account is easy. Just follow these simple steps:

  1. Contact your IRA administrator for the necessary forms to transfer the distribution to us.  Or download our request letter for 2011 (in Microsoft Word format), customize it with your contact and account information, and send it to your administrator.
  2. Inform us that you are making an IRA charitable distribution by contacting Donna Lippman (phone and address below).
  3. Please let us know who is the custodian of your IRA account and the amount of your gift.  This will enable us to send you a receipt and acknowledgement of your gift.

For further details, please contact:

Donna Lippman
Office of Alumni Affairs and Development
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art
30 Cooper Square, 8th Floor
New York, NY 10003-7120
Phone: (212) 353-4172
Fax: (212) 353-4327
E-mail: dlippman@cooper.edu

The Cooper Union's federal tax identification number is 13-5562985.

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.