Sharing Your Success Through Philanthropy

Charitable Planning

Whether you give during your lifetime or upon you passing, Charitable Giving can be a rewarding way to share your successes with others.  In addition, you can create a legacy of philanthropy that future generations of your family can carry on.

Lifetime Giving**

Making gifts to your favorite charity during your lifetime can be both rewarding and create beneficial tax opportunities.  When making lifetime gifts to your charity you have many choices for what and how you wish to benefit that charity.  Below are some examples.

Outright Gifts

• Gifts of Cash: Maximize your charitable deduction and deliver immediate benefits to your preferred charity.
• Gifts of Appreciated Securities: The IRS allows you one of its most significant tax breaks for gifts of appreciated securities.
• Gifts of Real Estate: Make a substantial gift to your preferred charity through a transfer of residential, commercial, or undeveloped real estate.
• Gifts of Business Interests: Give your preferred charity an interest in a closely-held or family business.
• Gifts of Partnership Interests: Support your preferred charity by transferring interest in a real estate or oil-and-gas partnership.
• Gifts of Personal Property: Donate books, artwork or equipment and secure an income tax deduction.

Gifts in Partnership With Your Preferred Charity

• Charitable Bargain Sales: This part-gift/part-sale transaction gives you a charitable deduction plus cash to purchase other property.
• Charitable Gift Annuities - Immediate: Receive a fixed payout and significant tax benefits.
• Charitable Gift Annuities - Deferred: Build retirement earnings by deferring the onset of annuity payments. (recommended for younger donors)
• Charitable Lead Trusts: Freeze the taxable value of your appreciating assets by using them to make gifts today and pass them back to family members later.
• Charitable Remainder Trusts: Combine a charitable gift with an income payout by placing your donation into an individually managed trust.
• Retained Life Estates: Give your preferred charity your house and continue to live there rent-free.

Gifts Upon Your Passing

In addition to benefiting your preferred charity during your lifetime, there are several strategies to give following our passing that will ensure you leave a Philantropic Legacy.

• Gifts by Will or Living Trust: Give to your preferred charity without reducing your cash flow during your lifetime.
• Gifts of Retirement Plans: Your retirement plan may be worth more when donated to your preferred charity than to your heirs.
• Gifts of Life Insurance: Create a significant endowment for your preferred charity without dipping into your capital assets.
• Testamentary Life Income Gift: Your will or revocable living trust creates, for example, a charitable remainder trust that pays income to your spouse or other heirs for their lifetime. Eventually, the remaining principle goes to your preferred charity.

Non-Profit Organizations (Tax-Exempt Organizations)

You may have seen in recent news that Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft) has dedicated a substantial portion of his wealth to The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  Although Mr. Gates has started his charity with an extremely large sum of money, most non-profit organizations are significantly smaller in scale.   If you are charitably inclined but want more control over how your donations are used, then forming a non-profit may be a vehicle with which to acheive your goals.

Charities often state they are a "501(c)3"  in the materials provide.  While this typically indicates that the charity has obtained recognition as a Tax Exempt Organization, the designation does little to describe how the charity works, whether donations are tax deductible, and if deductible to what extent.  A 501(c)3 encompases many types of charities subject to a variety of rules and regulations regarding governance, self-dealing, conflicts, income taxes, deductibility of donations and many more areas.  When forming a new charity I will work to ensure the type of entity you choose allows for your charity to conduct the philanthropic activities that most interest you.

While forming a non-profit may be completed through various webservices, failure to properly form, fund, and operate the non-profit may cause the nonprofit to consume itself through fees, penalties and taxes.  An experienced advisor will work closely with you to avoid the traps that many charities fall victim to, including the millions of dollars in excise taxes the IRS issues to nonprofits each year.

Please call me today for your no cost initial consultation!

** Please speak to your tax advisor prior to making gifts because tax limitations apply.