Have you decided to give money or assets to charity during your life or after death? Charitable planning can ensure that you can support the causes important to you while also achieving other critical objectives, such as building a public legacy or preserving family wealth through the tax benefits of charitable giving.
Contact Peakstone Law Group for a free consultation with a charitable planning lawyer in Colorado Springs to learn how we can help you and your family plan for the future.
Why You Should Work with Our Colorado Springs Charitable Planning Lawyers
Careful charitable planning can help you leave a meaningful legacy and protect your family’s wealth through tax benefits. Choose the legal team at Peakstone Law Group to help you through the planning process because:
- Our charitable planning attorneys have over four decades of combined legal experience developing innovative, tailored legal strategies and solutions.
- We treat every client who walks through our doors like a person, not just another case file. Our attorneys will take the time to explain your options in plain language you can understand to help you make informed decisions during the estate planning process.
- Our team will keep you informed. We respond promptly to voicemails, emails, and text messages to ensure you have the necessary answers.
- We work hard to relieve the stress of the charitable planning process, using an interactive client portal so you can quickly share information with us and get updates on the progress of your case.
What Is Charitable Planning?
Charitable planning is legal strategy planning focused on giving or leaving assets and wealth to philanthropic causes. It may involve strategizing how to give to charitable causes during your life or making specific bequests to charitable causes in your will or trusts.
Individuals and families may undertake charitable planning to create a legacy and use part of their wealth for good causes. Charitable planning may also seek to take advantage of tax benefits from charitable giving to reduce income and estate and inheritance taxes.
Potential Charitable Planning Strategies
Charitable planning in Colorado Springs may use various legal strategies, such as:
- Charitable bequests – A person can leave assets or money to philanthropic causes after death by making specific bequests in their will. An individual may name specific charitable organizations to leave bequests to or direct their executor to make donations to specific charitable causes. Individuals can leave specific assets to a charitable organization or cause, such as a parcel of real estate, or give a percentage of their estate to a charitable organization or cause.
- Charitable trusts – Individuals and families may establish charitable lead trusts or charitable remainder trusts to facilitate charitable giving. A charitable trust can give money to charities to take advantage of tax benefits, which can preserve trust assets for further distributions to charitable causes or family member beneficiaries. A charitable lead trust pays charitable causes during the trust’s term, with the remaining trust assets distributed to the remainder beneficiaries upon the trust’s expiration. A charitable remainder trust pays income to beneficiaries during the trust’s term, with the remaining assets paid to designated charitable causes upon the trust’s expiration.
- Beneficiary designations – A person may leave benefits from a retirement account, bank or brokerage account, or life insurance policy to a charity.
- Donor-advised funds – A person may invest cash and other assets into an account managed by a sponsoring charitable organization, taking deductions whenever they invest more assets into the fund. The person creating the fund retains the right to recommend grants of income and principal from the fund to eligible charitable causes.
- Private foundations – Individuals and families who want to undertake prolonged charitable giving may establish a private foundation to manage their charitable activity. Creating a private foundation allows individuals or families to set guidelines for using their charitable donations and create a significant public legacy.
Legal Considerations in Charitable Planning
People going through the charitable planning process should review critical legal considerations that may arise in their case, including:
- Organizations’ charitable and tax-exempt status – Choosing philanthropic causes and organizations to give to may depend on the organization’s charitable or tax-exempt status, primarily when an individual or family makes tax benefits a goal of their charitable planning.
- Imposing donor restrictions – People who make charitable donations may consider imposing restrictions on their gifts to ensure that a charitable organization does not use them for purposes inconsistent with the donor’s goals or sensibilities.
- Failure of the designated charitable purpose – When individuals and families undertake charitable giving through trusts or foundations, they should consider the possibility that their designated charitable cause becomes impractical or impossible. For example, suppose a person establishes a trust for a college that later closes. In that case, the person may have designated an alternative charitable cause, or a court may select another similar cause for the trust under the cy pres doctrine.
How to Get Started with Charitable Planning
Take the following steps to help you meet your charitable planning goals:
- Identify charitable goals to determine what organizations and causes to give to.
- Seek legal and financial advice about the specific strategies or structures you can use to fulfill your charitable giving plans.
- Document your wishes by creating the necessary estate planning tools, including wills, trusts, and beneficiary designations.
How Our Charitable Planning Attorneys Can Help You
The Colorado Springs charitable planning lawyers at Peakstone Law Group are ready to help you develop a charitable giving strategy tailored to your estate planning needs and goals by:
- Talking with you to understand your objectives for charitable planning, including helping advance charitable causes, establishing a positive legacy, or obtaining tax benefits
- Identifying charitable giving strategies tailored to your estate planning needs and goals
- Helping you draft and execute the paperwork necessary to carry out your charitable giving objectives
- Working on your behalf to monitor your charitable giving plan to ensure it meets your objectives and wishes
Let a knowledgeable charitable planning attorney from Peakstone Law Group help you understand the benefits of charitable planning as a part of your estate planning strategy. Contact us today for a free consultation with our legal team to learn more about our charitable planning services.