The Grantor CLAT offers a large income tax deduction in the year of the gift, which can be carried over for five years. For high net worth individuals, it is also a wonderful vehicle for estate planning. For all donors, this vehicle provides current funding for charity!

This article addresses the more difficult questions that arise in the operation of a gift annuity program. Some questions concern technical issues, such as whether annuity payments can be made to a trust, while others pertain to determination of the payments and tax consequences when real estate and other complicated assets are contributed. Finally, programmatic matters, such as identifying and dealing with problem annuities, adopting a spending policy, negotiation of rates, and implications of reinsurance, are explained.

A DAF allows a donor to have flexibility in her charitable giving.

Themed after a physical exam, this article describes how some programs are healthy and some are less so. While there are some excellent tools available that can take assumptions and a database and come up with useful diagnoses, this article explains how to analyze those results and cover some practical steps that can be taken to become or stay healthy through best practices such as: selective reinsurance, adjusting the investment of the funds, gift acceptance policies, and being pro-active about the way funds are removed from the pool.