Читать книгу The Law of Fundraising - Bruce R. Hopkins - Страница 26

An increasingly active area of fundraising involves gifts made by a donor now, to be realized by the charitable organization in the future. The term gift planning best describes this concept. These gifts either transfer assets to the charity now, in exchange for the donor's retaining an income for life, or transfer the remaining assets at the donor's death. This planning allows donors to remember their favorite charities in their estate and to plan gifts of their assets, now or at death. These gift decisions are usually made by donors who have some history of involvement and participation with the charities named in their estate and speak loudly of the donors' trust and confidence in the organizations and their future.

The four broad areas of planned giving are guided by income tax, gift tax, and estate tax law, plus layers of changing regulations. Estate planning is perhaps the single area of fundraising in which the tax consequences of giving are most prominent.

1 Wills and Bequests. The easiest way for donors to leave a gift is to specify in their will or living trust that “ten percent (10%) of the residue of my estate is to go to XYZ Charity.” Organizations should provide donors with suitable but simple bequest language, to encourage them to include the organization in their will. These gifts may be outright transfers from the estate or may involve funding by means of a charitable trust created by a will.

2 Pooled Income Funds. A “starter gift” to show donors how gift planning works can be made by means of a pooled income fund. Individuals may join a “pool” of other donors whose funds are commingled, with interest earnings paid out according to a pro rata shares distribution based on the annual value of the invested funds. Similar to mutual funds, pooled income funds require donors to execute a simple trust agreement and transfer cash or securities to the charity, which adds their gift to the pooled income fund. Upon a donor's death, the value of their shares is removed from the fund and transferred to the charity for its use.

3 Charitable Remainder Gifts. Major gifts of property with appreciated value make excellent assets to transfer to a charitable organization in exchange for a retained life income based on the value of the gift at the time of transfer. These gifts are especially valuable to donors planning their retirement income and distribution of their assets. The structure of the trust agreement may be as a unitrust, annuity trust, or gift annuity. While the legal structure of the three agreements is slightly different, the charity in each case assumes responsibility to manage the asset or its cash value and to pay the donor an income of 5 percent at least annually.

4 Life Insurance/Wealth Replacement Trust. Any individual may name his or her favorite charity as a beneficiary, in whole or in part, of a life insurance policy. This decision qualifies the value as a charitable contribution deduction. Some charitable organizations offer their own life insurance product, and premiums paid to the charity represent annual gifts for tax-deduction purposes. The charity uses the funds to pay premiums on a policy it owns, which names the charity as the sole beneficiary. The advantage to the donor is that the charity recognizes the death benefit value as the amount “credited” as a gift by the donor. The wealth replacement trust concept is linked to a charitable remainder trust; the donor uses the annual income to purchase a life insurance policy, usually for the value of the asset placed in trust, and names his or her heirs as beneficiaries, thus transferring to heirs the same value upon the donor's death.