Provide for Your Loved Ones and the Foundation

Charitable Lead Trusts

Do you want to benefit from the tax savings that result from supporting the Foundation, yet you don’t want to give up any assets that you’d like your family to receive someday? You can have it both ways with a charitable lead trust.

There are two ways charitable lead trusts make payments:

A charitable lead annuity trust pays a fixed amount each year to the Foundation and is more attractive when interest rates are low.

A charitable lead unitrust pays a variable amount each year based on the value of the assets in the trust. With a unitrust, if the trust’s assets go up in value, for example, the payments to the Foundation go up as well.

Check Out This Potential Scenario

George would like to support the Foundation and provide for his children. Following his advisor’s recommendation, George funds a charitable lead annuity trust with assets valued at $800,000.

George’s trust pays $56,000 (7 percent of the initial fair market value) to the Foundation each year for 15 years, which will total $840,000. After that, the balance in the trust goes to his children. Assuming a 6 percent investment return, the children will receive approximately $1,918,101.

His gift tax deduction is $2,182,775* against the $800,000 of assets. Therefore, only the difference ($317,225) is subject to gift tax, which is offset against his lifetime gift tax exclusion. After that, the remaining trust assets and all of their growth will pass to his family at zero additional cost in gift and estate taxes. Had George given the $800,000 outright to his children, it would have been a taxable gift.

*Assuming annual payments and a 2.4 percent charitable midterm federal rate.

Next Steps

  1. Contact Teresa Cirelli, Executive Director of the Eden II & Genesis Foundation, at tcirelli@eden2.org or 718-816-1422 x 1040 to talk about supporting the Foundation by setting up a charitable lead trust.
  2. Seek the advice of your financial or legal advisor.
  3. If you include the Foundation in your plans, please use our legal name and federal tax ID.

Legal Name: Foundation for the Advancement of Autistic Persons
Address: 15 Beach Street, Staten Island NY 10304
Federal Tax ID Number: 06-1277426