On Friday, Congress permanently allowed donors to make qualifying distributions to charities from their IRA while still alive.
For more than a decade donor-advised funds (DAFs) have been the fastest growing giving vehicle in the charitable giving landscape. So what draws donors to DAFs? When we peel back the layers, we find a whole host of reasons and benefits. In addition to being easy to establish, DAFs offer an immediate tax benefit, a tax free environment for appreciated assets to be sold, anonymity in giving, family involvement, and the ability to spread giving over many years.
Read More »DAF Stats: Baby Boomers Lead the Way but Millennials Gaining Ground on Gen X
It’s time.
As we all come off the four-day food bender that is Thanksgiving, we must face the inevitable; the Christmas season is here. For those who are like me, I adopt ostrich-like qualities from what now seems like Labor Day through Thanksgiving, ignoring the ever-expanding holiday shopping propaganda.Read More »Making our List and Checking it Twice
Just about any asset can be a good candidate for a donor-advised fund (DAF). Cash and publicly traded securities are by far the most common, but there are many other under-utilized ‘specialty” assets that work well for a contribution to a DAF. Such specialty assets include closely-held business interests, real estate, equipment, collectibles, and other similar property.
Often we hear advisors and families alike remark about how challenging it can be to start a conversation around giving. In reality, studies show that individuals want their advisors to discuss charitable giving. While charitable giving is a different conversation for advisors, Renaissance has developed some trigger questions to help you get the conversation started. Advisors play a critical role in starting these conversations and introducing solutions like Donor-Advised Funds (DAF) to charitable families. A DAF is the perfect tool for a family to support a tradition of giving and for an advisor to employ tax-smart strategies to enable the family to give more over time. Read More »Making Philanthropy a Family Affair
In Part 1 of this two-part series, we described several basic design features of a charitable lead trust (CLT). In Part 2 we will explore three common CLT formats.
A common goal of estate planning to avoid estate and gift taxes. A charitable lead trust (CLT) is one tool that can accomplish this objective. Although less familiar than charitable remainder trusts, CLTs can meet many of a donor’s tax, financial, and non-financial goalsall in the context of making a charitable gift. For example, a CLT may be used to accomplish one or more of the following:
Read More »A CLT Can Benefit Charity, Reduce Taxes & Transfer Assets to Heirs
This is Part 3 of a 3-part series.
Read More »Four Strategies to Utilize Life Insurance for Charitable Gifts
This is Part 2 of a 3-Part series on Charitable Gifts of Life Insurance. (Catch-up with Part 1). In this post, we will focus on policy suitability and claiming the charitable deduction and then wrap up with a Case Study. Part 3 will describe a client who gave an existing policy and a client who gave cash to a charity, which then purchased a new life insurance policy.
Read More »Which Life Insurance Policies are Suitable for Charitable Giving?
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