Many of our clients have charitable objectives as part of their gifting program and estate plan.
All members of the estate planning team are skilled in the use of various charitable gifting techniques, such as charitable remainder trusts, charitable lead trusts, charitable gift annuities, donor-advised funds, conservation easements and private foundations to meet our clients' goals. In fact, we were in the forefront of developing the effective use of charitable lead trusts in the early 1980s as a means to make distributions to charity while at the same time benefiting the client's children and grandchildren. These trusts pay an annuity or a unitrust amount to charitable organizations for a specified term and then continue for the benefit of the donor's descendants. Through the informed use of charitable lead trusts, it is possible to transfer substantial amounts of wealth to younger generations at little or no transfer tax cost and accomplish the client's charitable objectives at the same time.