Charitable Lead Trust

If you are looking for a way to transfer some of your assets to your family while reducing or eliminating gift or estate taxes, a charitable lead trust (CLT) is an excellent option. A CLT also allows you to make a significant gift to Board of Child Care during the lifetime.

How a Charitable Lead Trust Works

  1. You make a contribution of your property to fund a trust.
  2. The trust holds the assets and pays Board of Child Care income for a specified term of years.
  3. Board of Child Care uses the funds for its programs.
  4. At the end of the trust term, the assets (and any accrued value) are transferred to you or your heirs.

Benefits

  • Significantly reduce or eliminate taxes (gift and estate) on family assets or wealth you wish to transfer to your heirs.
  • Help build a better world for children.

There are numerous types of Charitable Lead Trusts to choose from, depending on your goals. For instance, you can choose to pay fixed or variable income to Board of Child Care and choose to whom the assets will go after the trust ends.

Zero Tax Plan

It is even possible to set up a lead trust that will allow you to transfer assets to your family with zero transfer taxes. The IRS assumes that a lead trust is only earning at the current low federal rate. If the actual investments of the trust produce a higher return than the payments made to Board of Child Care over the term of the trust, then the full value of the trust may be transferred to family with zero gift tax.

FLP/Lead Trust Plan

To discount your gift to family even more, you may consider first transferring your real estate or other assets into a family limited partnership (FLP) which will fund your lead trust. The combination of the FLP, the lead trust and a gift exemption can permit the lead trust to pay income to us for a number of years and potentially transfer substantial assets tax-free to your family.

Increasing Payment Lead Trust

With increased volatility in the stock market you may also want to consider creating a lead trust that makes fixed payments of increasing amounts to Board of Child Care over time. Because the payments to Board of Child Care are fixed, your family ultimately benefits from any growth in the trust. Low payouts in early years allows the trust to grow, thus allowing protection should the economy produce below-average returns in the future.