Russell James is truly a bright light in the charitable world. Not only is he a leading researcher and thinker in the area of charitable giving, but he is one of the most generous. He repeatedly offers the fruits of his efforts to our industry, for free. We are honored to present his book, Visual Planned Giving: An Introduction to the Law & Taxation of Charitable Gift Planning, to our readers.

In his first chapter, Russell emphasizes the complexity of planned giving. He identifies multiple issues that contribute to this complexity, including several different tax regimes, state law, federal law, appraisals, business entities, arcane documentation requirements, and more. However, at its core, planned giving can do two things; it can lower taxes and trade a gift for income. Financial advisors and fundraisers should keep these basic principles in mind when considering what planned giving can accomplish.

Due to the plethora of possibilities for trading a gift for income, the issues quickly become cluttered. A donor seeking to reduce taxes and/or trade a gift for income could utilize a CGA, CRUT, CRAT, Flip-CRUT, NIMCRUT, NICRUT, or PIF. However, the core concepts remain the same. Each one of these vehicles allows a donor to lower taxes and trade a gift for income. The advisor or fundraiser should view these structures as options available to meet the donor's needs. In addition to meeting donors' income needs, planned giving can lower taxes. Lower taxes benefit the client since gifts are cheaper; the advisor, because it provides value to the client while maximizing the assets under management; and charity, because it makes large gifts more affordable.

Fundraisers should have a basic understanding of these gift vehicles. This may seem counterintuitive since outright, cash gifts provide instant value to the charity, while the charity may have to wait many years to fully realize the donor's gift in a planned giving arrangement. However, only a small portion of a donor's assets consists of cash. Fundraisers who shun the complexities of planned giving in favor of cash gifts are asking for money out of the smallest bucket since only a small fraction of assets consist of cash.

Planned giving is also an important tool for the financial advisor. Understanding these issues may help the financial advisor attract high net-worth clients since those clients tend to do the most charitable giving. A variety of planning techniques, such as family foundations, donor advised funds, and CRTs, allow the advisor to continue to manage the funds. Moreover, because these entities are not subject to tax, the advisor has more assets under management than if the donor sold the asset and reinvested the cash.

Mr. James has created a set of 65 videos for his "Complete Charitable Planning Training Series" to help his readers understand Chapter 1 and the entire book.

A CRT defers taxes upon the sale of farm equipment and provides cash flow to donors.

Once the revaluation occurs, Harry should consider contributing the dinars to a CRT, of which Harry and Wanda are income beneficiaries, before he sells the dinars. Gain on the sale of dinars by the CRT is not recognized for tax purposes because the CRT is a tax-exempt entity. Thus, Harry could defer the tax consequences of the sale, and pay income taxes only when he and Wanda receive payments from the CRT. Further, certain types of CRTs may provide greater opportunity to regulate the timing and flow of income to our donors and to grow assets tax-free.