Many of our clients are charitable during their lives. Giving is a part of their values and financial planning. The Oak Crest Law Group has years of experience working with our clients to develop a charitable giving plan as a part of their estate plan. A Charitable Plan can be set up as part of your revocable living trust planning, coming into existence at the time of your death, or as a stand-alone plan during your lifetime. The following Charitable Trusts are an example of options available to you today.
Charitable Lead Trust
The Charitable Lead Trust is a type of charitable trust that can reduce or virtually eliminate all estate tax on wealth passing to heirs. In order to accomplish this goal, you create a trust that grants to a charity or charities, for a set number of years, the first or ‘lead’ right to receive a payment from the trust. At the end of the term of years, your children or grandchildren receive the balance of the trust property’ which often is greater than the amount contributed, free of estate tax in most instances.
Charitable Remainder Trust
The Charitable Remainder Trust (‘CRT’) permits you to transfer ownership of assets to the trust in exchange for an income stream to the person or persons of your choice (typically you, your spouse or you and your spouse) for life or for a specified term of up to 20 years. With the most common type of Charitable Remainder Trust, at the end of the term, the balance of the trust property (the ‘remainder interest’) is transferred to a specified charity or charities.