On Dec 13, 7:10 pm, Dave Dodson <dave_and_da...[at]juno.com> wrote:
- quote -


What's your tax bracket? And how much would a tax deductible
charitable contribution mean to your tax situation? I think if you do
some calculation you may come to the conclusion that it isn't that big
a deal.


======================================= MODERATOR'S COMMENT:
Please trim the post to which you respond. Also see the weekly post, "Posting to misc.invest.financial-plan". Thank you for participating.

Dave Dodson <dave_and_darla[at]juno.com> writes:

- quote -

That's one potential use for them. It's also great, similarly,
if you're going to be in a higher tax bracket one year but not
in another - make the donations in the high tax year, make the
distributions anytime you like without needing to think about
tax implications. Also very nice right now - year end - to
be able to make donation fast and at once rather than scrambling
to contact various charities, make sure each sends you appropriate
receipts, etc. A *huge* convenience.

Other additional advantages: if you want to donate appreciated
stock and avoid cap-gains taxes, way *way* easier to do it once
and then use the gift fund to distribute the proceeds to more
than one charity. And if your appreciated stock is in a
Fidelity account (assuming you are using the Fido Gift Fund),
making the donation could hardly be easier - point and click
and it's done in a few moments.

Further: grants you authorize from the fund may be made
either anonymously or without your contact information (ie. no
address) if you like. You don't need any contact from the
charities themselves because you no longer need a receipt
from them (the Gift Fund will have given you one!). If you
want to give gifts but not have to receive mountains of
additional solicitations from the charities, this may help
a lot.

- quote -

We've been very pleased with Fidelity's program. The biggest
improvement I'd like to see them make is to lower the threshold
for additional gifts to the fund. Right now you can open
an account with a $5000 gift, but additional contributions have
to be over $1000 each. Not necessarily a big problem if you
generally make a big contribution once or twice a year (especially
of appreciated assets) but it's still a pretty big hurdle for
many folks.

Overall, we love it.

Here's a recent article which talks about these and some of the
tax issues:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/...-charity_N.htm

And here the Fund is discussed by Dartmouth economist and blogger
Andrew Samwick:

http://voxbaby.blogspot.com/2007/12/...mily-fund.html




--
Plain Bread alone for e-mail, thanks. The rest gets trashed.
No HTML in E-Mail! -- http://www.expita.com/nomime.html
Are you posting responses that are easy for others to follow?
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/2000/06/14/quoting

Dave Dodson wrote:

- quote -

If you are taking RMDs from your IRA, you have just this month to donate
directly from the IRA. See my article describing this:
http://www.joetaxpayer.com/iradon.html

I also use the charitable fund, for a reason other than grouping the
donation for a deduction. A long term cap gain can have a phantom rate
of 22.5% due to AMT. I had a stock with a $2000 basis that was getting
taken over for $10,000 (total cost/sale). That would have been $1800 in
tax. By donating the $10,000 worth of stock, I got the tax write off of
the full $10K, and then was able to break it up into the individual
donations I wanted to make.
In your case, the fund allows you to jump over the standard deduction
every few years. Keep in mind, you may want to do this with property tax
to the extent you can. When I was in a similar situation, I paid Q4 late
one year (1.5% late fee) and then paid ahead 2 quarters, the town was
happy to take my money in advance. That may help your cause.
JOE

I'm recently retired, living on Social Security and distributions from
my IRA, and own my house free and clear so that I don't have
sufficient deductions to itemize on my tax return. I'm a philanthropic
person, but for the first time in my life, my contributions are not
tax-deductible.

I am aware that Fidelity, Vanguard, and others have donor-advised
investment funds. Fidelity's is called the Charitable Gift Fund.
Apparently, you can donate to the fund, which is a recognized charity,
and choose among several investments to receive the funds. Then, you
can set up periodic or one-time gifts to the charitable organizations
of your choice.

The tax advantage seems to come if you donate several years' worth of
contributions at once, so that the total is large enough to
substantially exceed the standard deduction.

Scott Burns has written about Fidelity Charitable Gift Funds several
times, the latest at:
http://assetbuilder.com/blogs/scott_...investing.aspx

Has anyone had any experience with a gift fund?

Dave