Tips for Year-end Charitable Gifts

Valley Center Community Church wants to help you get the most tax benefit from your gift while giving the church the greatest benefit.  Consider these ideas for gifts now or at any time during the year.

1. Donating long-term appreciated securities—rather than selling the assets and then donating the cash proceeds—is one of the easiest ways for donors to increase their charitable dollars and maximize their impact on the community. If it’s time to rebalance your portfolio, consider a charitable gift with the appreciated positions.  Long-term appreciated securities include stocks, bonds, or mutual funds that have realized significant appreciation over at least one year. These gifts can be deducted at full market value, up to 30% of your adjusted gross income, with the ability to carry forward amounts exceeding your allowance for up to five years.

2. For those of you in our church family over the age of 70 ½ and do not need the liquidity of your IRA’s required minimum distribution?  Consider a Qualified Charitable Distribution or a “QCD”.   A qualified charitable distribution (QCD) is a distribution from an IRA made directly to an eligible charity (VCCC), bypassing the owner of the account. Owners of individual retirement accounts who are at least age 70 1/2 can contribute up to $100,000 per year.

3. To be eligible for a charitable tax deduction, you may need to initiate certain contributions earlier in the year.  Some assets such as mutual funds and restricted stock take longer to accept and process, so advanced planning is required to meet year-end deadlines.

4. With the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’s higher standard deduction, donors can benefit from grouping multi-year donations into a single tax year.  This is also referred to as donation “bunching.”  Donation bunching can also be done in combination with donating appreciated stock.

Through creative gift planning, you may be able to do more for yourself and for Valley Center Community Church!