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Nuts & Bolts Issues for Small Group Leaders
Price: $11.95
Discovering God's Vision for Your Life Participant Manual (Certificate Included)
Price: $11.95
Leading Beyond the Walls: Developing Congregations with a Heart for the Unchurched
Price: $22.00
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Good to Great and the Social Sectors
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Planned Giving: The Power of Controlling Your Social Capital
Planned giving, as the name indicates, is giving that is planned. The key word here is planned. The Honorable Learned Hand, a U.S. Appeals Court judge, observed, "There are two systems of taxation in this country, one for the informed and one for the uninformed." The purpose of planning is to become informed!
The estate of the late Joe Robbie, former owner of the Miami Dolphins, paid 55 percent of the estate for federal estate taxes, forcing the family to sell the team to pay the tax debt. In contrast, the estate of the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis paid less than 2 percent of the $164 million estate in taxes. How could this happen? Planning!
Controlling Your Social Capital
The current tax law states that if an estate exceeds $1,000,000 ($2,000,000 for married couples), the portion in excess of that amount is subject to taxation. In his book The Principles of SOCIAL CAPITAL, Don Hartmann of Hallmark Consulting Group, Inc., calls the excess "social capital," because a portion of it "must be shared with society."
Without a plan the government decides what happens to your hard-earned social capital. With a plan you control what Mr. Hartmann calls the power of social capital. Hartmann defines this power as:
- the power to capture the "dollars you can't keep" and use them to increase your income and leave more to your heirs.
- the power to personally direct "the fruits of your labor," empowering you to shape the future in the way you believe is best.
- the power to achieve lasting significance. "What man fears most is not so much extinction, but extinction without significance." This quote from American psychologist Ernest Becker identifies the deep need people have for lasting personal significance. If you capture and direct a portion of the social capital you have created, you directly, personally, and powerfully affect the future and leave a lasting legacy.
The Tools for Directing Social Capital
Tools that allow you to minimize or even completely avoid the estate tax include:
- Charitable bequest
- Charitable bargain sale
- Charitable gift annuity
- Charitable lead trust
- Charitable remainder trust
- Private family foundation
By structuring an estate distribution plan that incorporates just one of the tools of directing social capital described above, you can significantly reduce the tax burden on your estate. In some cases, you may even be able to establish a zero tax estate plan and effectively direct 100 percent of your social capital.
For information on how to gain more control of your social capital, contact:
Stephen Ministries Planned Giving
2045 Innerbelt Business Center Drive
St. Louis, Missouri 63114-5765
(314) 428-2600
Tax laws are complicated, and you should seek the advice of a trained, qualified professional.