As your clients’ charitable-giving partner, the Community Foundation of Southeast Kansas strives to highlight giving opportunities that you or your clients should be aware of. If you have clients who are interested in giving to charities, consider whether they might benefit from any of the strategies outlined below.
Appreciated stock
When your clients donate appreciated stock to CFSEK, they qualify for a charitable-gift deduction equal to the value of the stock on the date of donation. This can give rise to sophisticated giving opportunities like donating appreciated stock instead of cash, then using the cash that would have been donated to purchase replacement stock with a higher basis.
Bunching donations
Because of the increased standard deduction ushered in by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017, many taxpayers have found it more difficult to take advantage of the charitable-giving deduction when they file their taxes each year. “Bunching” donations, or combining multiple years’ giving into a single year, can help address that problem. Better still, if your clients contribute their bunched donations to a donor-advised fund, they can give to the fund in one year and grant to nonprofits out of it in subsequent years.
Qualified charitable distributions
Clients who must take a required minimum distribution (RMD) from their tax-deferred IRA can offset the amount of their taxable RMD up to $100,000 by making a non-taxable qualified charitable distribution. Although this benefit is not available for distributions to a donor-advised fund, other types of CFSEK funds–like designated funds or scholarships–do qualify.
Other strategies
If you have a client who could benefit from one of the above giving strategies, or if you know of another strategy you’d like to discuss with us, please contact us! We’ll be happy to help you structure a charitable-giving solution that is simple, effective, and tax-efficient so they can better accomplish their charitable goals.