Is charitable giving in your New York estate plan?

Is charitable giving in your New York estate plan?

On Behalf of | Feb 23, 2023 | Charitable Giving, Estate Planning

It’s crucial that you know what’s going to happen with your financial future beyond your own lifetime. With everything else there is to worry about during the process of forming your estate plan in New York, it leaves charitable giving often forgotten about and pushed to the side. Other times, it’s too confusing to navigate.

Why is charitable giving often overlooked?

Countless people simply don’t know the best way to integrate their charitable giving, so many don’t do it at all. Fortunately, there are some simple steps you can take to demystify the process of working it in.

One option is to include a charity as a beneficiary in your will, which is among the simplest routes to go. A benefit of choosing this approach is that it has the potential to reduce the ultimate tax burden.

Find the strategy that fits your needs

Some of the other common methods of making charitable giving a part of your estate plan include:

  • Gifting your property
  • Creating a charitable remainder trust
  • Giving appreciated stock
  • Using life insurance
  • Using a charitable gift rider

Contributing a charitable rollover from an IRA is another way you can go. It’s also possible in this way to use a charitable tax break for an IRA sooner rather than later. You’ll have the opportunity to give as much as $100,000 to charitable causes annually, and it can come directly from your IRA.

Once you’ve done this, you’ll be able to count the amount you donated toward any required minimum distributions or RMDs. After you hit a designated age, you’ll have to take these distributions from your retirement accounts.