Planned Giving Options

A fund at Triangle Community Foundation will preserve the legacy of an individual or family name and ensure that the causes they care about will be supported forever. Your client is assured that their gift will never become obsolete, but will remain useful to the community in perpetuity.

Wills
After providing for personal bequests, your clients may include provisions for setting up a fund or add to a fund already established. They will save estate taxes and ensure that the charitable work they care about is carried on.  Charitable bequests can take a variety of forms—a percentage of the estate, a specific sum of money or asset, or a certain piece of property. Triangle Community Foundation also can be named the “residuary beneficiary” of all or part of the estate after other bequests, or a “contingent beneficiary” in the event other named beneficiaries do not outlive the donor. 

Deferred Giving
Your client can set up a fund through a deferred gift arrangement. Such deferred gifts are key feature of many estate plans and offer a tax advantage to your client now for the commitment of a charitable gift later. Triangle Community Foundation cannot presently serve as trustee of a charitable trust; but we work with you, your client and the financial institution or individual trustee of their choice.  The following are options for deferred giving:

Charitable remainder trusts
A charitable remainder trust involves an irrevocable transfer of cash or other type of asset to a trustee who manages the asset and pays income to your client or other beneficiaries for life or for a term of years.  Charitable remainder trusts are flexible vehicles that allow the donor to make a charitable gift but retain an income stream for the donor and/or others for life or a fixed number of years (maximum 20 years). These trusts are particularly well suited for gifts of appreciated securities and other assets such as real estate producing little or no income at the time of the gift. Because the trust is tax-exempt, it can sell the original asset without incurring capital gains tax and reinvest for a higher yield. As a result, the income from the trust may be considerably larger than the net earnings from the original low-yielding assets. This gift planning strategy is best suited for gifts of $100,000 or more, and may be established during life or by will.
 
Charitable lead trusts
A charitable lead trust results in immediate funding for charitable work in the community while providing for the eventual transfer of wealth to your client’s heirs at greatly reduced gift and estate tax rates.  A charitable lead trust allows donors to pass wealth on to heirs with reduced estate and gift tax, and make a gift to Triangle Community Foundation in the process. With a charitable lead trust, a donor transfers assets to a trust and directs the trustee to make immediate income payments to the Foundation for a term of years or for the lives of specified individuals. With the most common type of charitable lead trust (a non-grantor charitable lead trust), at the end of the trust’s term, the trust property is returned to family members or other designated individuals.

The donor will receive a federal gift tax deduction for the value of the income interest passing to TCF.  In addition, although the donor will not receive an income tax deduction, the donor is not taxed on any of the income earned by the trust. Taxable income generated by the trust and capital gains realized by the trust are taxed to the trust, but the trust is allowed a charitable deduction each year for the amount of the distributions to the Foundation in that year.

Finally, any appreciation that passes to family members is not subject to gift tax. Gift taxes are due when the trust is funded but are based on the value of the gift to family members calculated when the trust is created. A donor may use all or part of his or her lifetime-unified credit to offset or eliminate gift taxes. In addition, the trust assets will be removed from the donor’s estate for estate tax purposes. (Note: Gifts to grandchildren may result in Generation Skipping Transfer Tax.)

IRAs and Qualified Retirement Plans
Retirement plan assets are some of the most tax-efficient to transfer to charity in your estate plan.  When retirement assets pass to heirs, the assets may be subject to both estate and income taxes which can total more than 70%. Donors can avoid these taxes by designating the Triangle Community Foundation as the beneficiary of their retirement accounts and leaving other assets (such as appreciated stock with a stepped-up cost basis) to their heirs.  Triangle Community Foundation offers two possible solutions. First, the donor may designate the Foundation to receive the IRA or qualified retirement plan assets. The donor’s estate will pay no income tax and the estate tax liability will be reduced.

A second strategy is to name a charitable remainder trust as the beneficiary of the IRA or qualified retirement plan. The trust benefits the family for a period of time as specified in the trust instrument. No income tax will be due on the assets at the donor’s death, and the estate will receive a charitable estate tax deduction for the value of the charitable gift. When the trust term expires, the remainder of the trust’s assets will be used to create a permanent charitable fund for the family at TCF.

Life Insurance
A donor can make a gift to Triangle Community Foundation by irrevocably designating the Foundation as the owner and beneficiary of a paid-up insurance policy. The donor will receive an income tax charitable deduction equal to the lesser of the replacement value or cost basis of the policy.

The donor can also use life insurance as a wealth replacement asset by replacing the dollar value of an asset transferred to TCF with a life insurance policy of which family members or other individuals are the beneficiaries. The income tax and other tax savings from the gift to the Foundation are often more than enough to cover the cost of the insurance premiums.

Real Estate
Your client can make a gift of a vacation home or personal residence, farm, commercial buildings, income-producing or non-income-producing land and be entitled to a tax deduction for the fair market value of the property - up to 30% of adjusted gross income, while avoiding paying capital gains tax.  Gifts of real estate are evaluated and received through TCF Real Estate Foundation, a supporting organization of Triangle Community Foundation.