One of the pleasures of our jobs is to help clients facilitate their desire to make charitable gifts. 

We believe that charitable giving is an excellent way to bring your wealth in line with your values.

Giving breaks the power of money, a key way to bring about the 'contentment in all economic circumstances’ that we desire our clients to have. 

For our clients who desire to make such gifts, we help them figure out how much and which assets would be best to give. The two most popular ways are by gifting appreciated securities and gifting of funds from an individual retirement account (IRA).

Appreciated Securities

When an investment you own has increased in value, selling that security will trigger capital gains taxes. If the investment is gifted to a qualified charity, you can deduct the full value of the security on the day it is gifted and not owe any capital gains tax. The receiving organization, as a non-profit, is also able to avoid the capital gains tax when they subsequently sell the investment you have gifted.

Gifting from an IRA

With a traditional IRA, the IRS requires an annual distribution once you have reached age 70.5. These distributions can be gifted directly to a qualified charity – the IRS calls this a “qualified charitable distribution”. The IRS rule also allows amounts greater than the required distribution to be gifted as well (up to $100,000 per person each year). This strategy avoids the distributions being counted as income on your tax return, creating significant tax savings.

Other Strategies

There are other strategies as well, many are meant for large one-time gifts or are used in more complex situations. These strategies include:

• Donor-Advised Funds
• Charitable Gift Annuities
• Charitable Remainder Trusts
• Charitable Lead Trusts

This information is not intended to be a substitute for specific individualized tax advice. We suggest that you discuss your specific tax issues with a qualified tax advisor.