Overview:
As you plan for your retirement your primary focus is on building assets to provide a source of income for your retirement years. The goal is to accumulate wealth, either on a taxable or tax deferred basis, that will generate sufficient earnings and growth combined with mandatory distributions from tax qualified plans and social security benefits to support your lifestyle in the years you are not working.
You may have other goals for wealth accumulation, such as to pass assets to your children or more remote descendants through lifetime gifting or your estate plan. People tend to be more aggressive and growth oriented in their investment strategies as they work to accumulate wealth, and then tend to become more conservative and income oriented as they reach retirement to preserve a principal base to sustain them when they are no longer generating income from employment.
In recent years, the unusually low interest rate environment has made this latter shift more challenging. Seniors are no longer able to rely on moderate returns from "safe" investments such as money market accounts, medium to long-term certificates of deposit, or tax exempt bonds, federally insured savings bonds, or treasury bills. The returns on these income- oriented investments not only produce a less than desirable rate of return, they also present a higher risk of market volatility than used to be the case.
To make matters worse for those who have invested successfully, whether in stocks and bonds or in real estate, commodities or other alternative investments, they often will have significant gains built into their investment assets which they will be reluctant to sell to shift the net proceeds into a new investment strategy because of the capital gains taxes to be paid. All of this produces a greater sense of uncertainty regarding what is the proper investment strategy as one approaches, enters and continues into retirement.
One creative option for those reaching retirement age who are already charitably inclined is to create a tax favored charitable arrangement that provides the combined benefits of a current income tax deduction, a higher monthly payment from the investment than would be otherwise commercially available, and the potential avoidance of all or some of the capital gains owed on the sale of an appreciated asset used to fund the arrangement. The simplest of these arrangements is a charitable gift annuity, and other options include a charitable remainder annuity trust or a charitable remainder unitrust.
Depending on the charitable arrangement selected, these arrangements can provide a source of higher income payments for one or two lives (such as a husband and wife for life) on a tax advantaged basis. While not right for everyone (particularly if you want your assets ultimately to go to your family) and usually not the right choice for one's entire estate, these charitable arrangements can provide real financial benefits to the donor or donors not achievable otherwise while allowing one to realize one's charitable goals at the same time. In the remainder of this Part 1 article, I will describe briefly the basic elements of the charitable gift annuity and how it can fit into your retirement planning.
The Charitable Gift Annuity:
The Charitable Gift Annuity is the simplest and most straightforward of the qualified split-interest charitable gift arrangements that can provide a secure source of fixed payments for life. The CGA can be set up with any charitable organization with sufficient assets or resources to enter into such an arrangement.
The principal benefits of the CGA are:
- Fixed payments to you.
- A charitable income tax deduction for the remainder value that will pass to charity.
- A portion of the fixed payments will be income tax free.
- Immediate benefits that you can see from the use of the assets donated to the charity you choose.
How the CGA works:
1. You donate cash, stocks or other property to the charity in exchange for the Charity's promise to pay fixed payments (usually monthly or quarterly) to you for your life, or to you and another for your joint lives, or to another person, on an immediate or a deferred basis.
2. The payments are a fixed percentage of the amount gifted that are determined usually based on a table of gift annuity rates published periodically by the American Council on Gift Annuities (ACGA), which rates increase with the donor/annuitant's age (or ages if based on joint lives).
3. At the time the gift is made and the charitable gift annuity agreement is entered into, the amount that is deductible for income tax purposes is fixed, the amount and frequency of payments to you is fixed, and the amount of each payment that is tax free or taxable as ordinary income to you is fixed.
4. If cash is donated, the charitable deduction may be taken up fifty percent (50%) of Adjusted Gross Income (AGI). If stocks or other appreciated assets are donated then all or a portion of the payments to you that would be otherwise tax-free will be taxable as capital gains based on the annuity portion of the gift. Also, the annual charitable income tax deduction will be limited to thirty percent (30%) of AGI.
5. The state is responsible for the general oversight of gift annuities.
Example:
Donor retiree, age 70, transfers $100,000.00 in cash to his favorite charity in exchange for a gift annuity. Based on his age of 70 years, the ACGA recommended annuity rate is 5.1%. Based on this rate, the Donor will receive payments of $5,100.00 per year, usually monthly. In addition, Donor may claim an income tax deduction of $37,886 (based on the current Applicable Federal Rate) which, at a marginal federal income tax rate of twenty-five (25%), generates tax savings of $9,471.00. Of the $5,100.00 paid annually to the donor, $3,881.10 is tax free. With a life expectancy of seventeen (17) years, the total projected payout is $86,700.00. This return plus these projected tax savings result in an effective payout rate of 7.1%, significantly increasing the retirement income available from this $100,000.00 over time.
Further, the charity receives the full $100,000 for immediate current use and if it is financially strong otherwise, there is very little risk to the donor from this "investment".
Summary:
While not suitable for every retiree, for the person who is already charitably minded the Charitable Gift Annuity offers a relatively simple and cost effective way to increase the monthly distributions from an asset with significant tax benefits, all while being able to see the effects of one's charitable gift while living.
J. Lee E. Osborne, Principal
Woods Rogers PLC
losborne@woodsrogers.com
(540) 983-7516 (direct)
www.WoodsRogers.com
(Note: Part 2 of this article will review the features and benefits of the charitable remainder annuity trust and the charitable remainder unitrust and the differences between these two split interest arrangements.)
(Updated 07/12/2016)
Lee Osborne is an attorney with Woods Rogers Attornys At Law. With four offices in Virginia and attorneys licensed in 11 states, Woods Rogers provides legal services and client solutions throughout the Commonwealth, Mid-Atlantic and beyond. Lee Osborne focuses his practice on estate planning and trusts and estates administration, which often involves taxation and business planning and related transactions. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC), which recognizes individual attorneys for distinguished contributions to the practice of estate planning, probate, and trust law. Currently, he serves as the Virginia State Chair for ACTEC.