Retirement-Plan Assets
A very effective way to fund a charitable gift, whether during your life or at death, is with retirement plan assets. Review the briefly explained methods below that you could employ to preserve more of your retirement-plan assets for your loved-ones and for M&G.
With a charitable remainder trust you can use your retirement-plan assets to provide an income for your spouse after your death and then give the remaining benefits to the Bob Jones University Museum & Gallery. By establishing a charitable trust now with your spouse as payment beneficiary and M&G as the remainderman, your retirement-plan assets would be paid to the trust at your death and your spouse would receive a stream of payments for life. Your spouse’s payments would be based on the payout rate you selected when the trust was established. At the end of your spouse’s life, the trust will terminate and its principal will be paid to M&G. With such an arrangement, no estate tax is payable because the trust qualifies for both charitable and marital deductions. In addition, because the charitable trust is a tax-exempt entity, no income tax is assessed to assets transferred to the trust. Of course, payments to your spouse from the trust will be taxed at his/her applicable tax bracket.
Funding a charitable remainder trust at your death with retirement-plan assets can also be an effective way to provide for surviving children, reduce taxes, and make a gift to M&G. The trust would be written to name your surviving children as beneficiaries, with M&G as the remainderman. The total benefits received by your children from the trust may be greater than if you had simply left your retirement funds as a lump sum to them. And, in addition, you provide a nice gift to M&G.
If you, your spouse, or your children do not need the income from a charitable remainder trust, you may want to consider giving all or part of your retirement-plan assets outright to M&G. Assets remaining in your retirement plan at death are subject to estate and income taxes. If you desire to make a charitable gift, you may want to consider making a withdrawal from your retirement plan and contributing it to M&G. The charitable deduction you would receive for the gift may offset the income tax incurred from the withdrawal.
Another way for you to make a gift to M&G from your retirement-plan assets is simply to give us all or a portion of your retirement funds at death. This gift will avoid all taxes, and the cost of such a gift may be as little as 20 cents on the dollar.
