Planning for the present and future.
Talk with your financial advisor about your desire to include charitable giving in your plans, for both the present and the future.
Review your beneficiary designations in your qualified retirement plans. If you have named individuals other than your spouse, talk with your advisor about how to help those beneficiaries receive more of those assets over a longer period of time than the 10 years now mandated by the SECURE Act. Suggestions include naming those beneficiaries in a Charitable Remainder Unitrust (CRUT) and designating the CRUT as the beneficiary of your retirement plan account instead.
Talk with your advisor about strategies for using cash to make tax-advantaged charitable gifts up to the 100% AGI limit.
Ask about techniques for gift planning in the current, and historically low, section 7520 environment. Non-Grantor Charitable Lead Trusts look better than ever for those few people who may still be sensitive to estate taxes, want to be charitable during their lifetimes, and want their heirs to receive a tax-free inheritance. Grantor Charitable Lead Trusts may be attractive to similarly minded people who want to receive a charitable income tax deduction, make significant charitable gifts over a period of time and then receive access to the remaining principal upon termination of the trust term.
Although the new charitable tax incentives do not apply to gifts of cash to a Donor-Advised Fund, what better time than now to consider recommending grants from your existing fund to support front-line health providers like Hartford Hospital.