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June 20, 2018 at 09:42 AM
Fiduciary Trust Charitable, an independent public charity, said Wednesday that it has lowered the minimum amount required to open a donor-advised fund from $250,000 to $50,000 — in anticipation of the heightened interest in “charitable gift bunching” under the new tax law.
“We expect the new federal tax law to increase high-net-worth household interest in ‘charitable gift bunching’ using donor-advised funds,” said Fiduciary Trust Charitable Executive Director Todd Eckler. “By lowering the minimum account opening contribution, more donors working with financial advisors will be able to take advantage of our donor-advised fund offering in general, as well as the ‘bunching’ tax strategy.”
The new $10,000 cap on deductions of state and local income and real estate taxes under the new tax law “could bring the standard deduction into play for high-net-worth households who might never have considered it before,” Fiduciary Trust explains.
The bunching technique, the firm said, “may benefit donors whose noncharitable itemized deductions fall below the new higher standard deduction ($24,000 for persons married filing jointly), so long as the donor has sufficient taxable income to fully deduct several years of charitable contributions in a single year, given deduction limits.”
Bunching involves consolidating tax-deductible charitable contributions that would normally be made over multiple years into a single tax year. “In the consolidated year, the donor contributes to a charitable giving vehicle, such as a donor-advised fund (DAF), and receives an immediate tax deduction through itemizing deductions on his or her federal tax return,” Fiduciary Trust explains.
