Planned Giving
Protect the animals you love. Create a lasting partnership with Home for Life®. Your planned gift makes it possible.
By including Home for Life® in your estate plan, you can continue providing a second chance for dogs and cats who are unwanted due to old age, chronic illness, handicaps and temperament issues.
There are many financial vehicles available to donors who want to ensure the continuity of services to the animals in Home for Life®'s care. Many of these vehicles can offer substantial tax benefits, supplement retirement income and enable donors to leave a legacy that will secure a safe, loving and permanent home for unwanted dogs and cats.
Listed below are the various gift vehicles that Home for Life® offers.
Charitable Bequests
Your will is an important element in your estate plan that enables you to protect the people you love, create a lasting partnership with Home for Life®, and help ensure a home forever for unwanted animals. For details about making a charitable bequest, see our Charitable Bequests page.
Charitable Trusts
Charitable trusts help ensure the future of the animals in Home for Life®'s care. Receive income for life or transfer property to your children or grandchildren in a tax-advantaged manner.
There are several different types of trusts, each with specific benefits to the donor and charity. In general, assets are deposited into a trust. The trust pays a stream of income either to the donor, to someone the donor designates, or to the charity. At the end of the trust, the remaining assets either go to the charity or revert to the donor's family. The amount of the income stream is either a set amount per year or a percentage of the value of the assets.
Charitable Gift Annuities
Balance your individual/retirement needs with your philanthropic interests. The Home for Life® charitable gift annuity can help you strengthen our sanctuary while providing a lifetime income stream for you, you and your spouse jointly, or someone else whom you designate.
There are several "real" benefits you will receive:
- Annuity rates are established at the date when the annuity is created. The resulting payment remains fixed for the life of the annuitant(s).
- You are eligible to receive an income tax deduction (typically 40-60% of the contribution) for a portion of your gift.
- If the gift portion of your annuity exceeds the IRS contribution limit, you may carry forward the excess deduction for as many as five additional years.
- A portion of each payment you receive from your annuity is generally considered tax-free and not reportable on your income tax return.
- If you fund your annuity with appreciated stocks, bonds or other assets, you may postpone reporting the capital gains; most often, this gain can be prorated over your life expectancy.
Gifts of Stock
Gifts of stocks or bonds are an excellent way to ensure that Home for Life® can continue to provide a safe and loving haven for unwanted animals. You can realize the best tax savings by having your broker transfer your gift stocks directly to Home for Life®.
Donors enjoy a two-fold advantage in donating long-term appreciated assets:
- A charitable tax deduction for the full present fair market value of the asset, and
- Absolutely no capital gains tax on the appreciation.
Arrangements for transfers of stock can be made through Home for Life's broker Chuck Spavin at RBC Wealth Management. He can be contacted at:
Phone: (651) 228-6979 or (800) 765-3246
Fax: (651) 228-6925
Email: chuck.spavin@rbc.com
Life Insurance Policies
Using a life insurance policy to support Home for Life® can be very cost-effective, especially for younger donors. Donors may apply for a new policy or make a gift of an existing policy that has cash value.
A new life insurance policy can enable someone with many current family obligations to turn a relatively small contribution into a dramatically larger gift. For older donors, a paid-up life insurance policy that is no longer needed also makes an excellent gift.
Another option is to simply name Home for Life® as the primary or contingent beneficiary of a new or existing policy, without transferring ownership of the policy. During your lifetime, you retain ownership and access to the policy's cash value, but realize no tax benefits. After your passing, if the proceeds of the policy are paid to Home for Life®, your estate is entitled to an estate tax charitable deduction.
Real Estate and Investment Properties
Outright gifts or bequests of real property have many advantages, including bypassing capital gains and reducing estate taxes. Gifts of real estate can include a house, apartment building, farm, vacation home, commercial building, or land (either income-producing or non-income-producing).
Donors can make outright gifts of real estate now or through their estate, or use the property to fund a charitable remainder trust that provides income to the donor or the donor's children.
A gift of real estate typically requires certain procedural steps, including a site visit to the property, a qualified appraisal, a preliminary title report and an environmental assessment. There are even ways to make such a gift—and achieve tax advantages now — while continuing to receive lifetime income from an income-producing property or retaining lifetime use of the property.
Retirement Plans
These can be powerful tools for endowing a charitable legacy to Home for Life® while avoiding heavy estate and income taxes.
Many individuals have accumulated substantial sums in tax-deferred retirement accounts, which include profit-sharing plans, IRAs 401(k)s and 403(b)s. These accounts are popular because the contributions are made with pre-tax dollars and the assets in the accounts grow tax-deferred. However, funds withdrawn from these accounts are usually taxed at both high income and estate tax rates.
It is possible that at death, less than 30% in a retirement account will reach non-spouse beneficiaries. Therefore, individuals planning to make charitable gifts at death should consider using retirement accounts to fulfill their wishes. By giving retirement account assets to Home for Life®, donors avoid substantial taxes that would otherwise be due. Other less heavily taxed assets are then available to fulfill bequests to loved ones.