Board of Trustees

Keawalai Congregational Church

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Keawalaʻi Endowment Fund
Temporary Gifts to the Church

The September-October issue of this newsletter and journal included the article “Gifts that Reserve a Varying Stream of Income.” That article was a duplication of what appeared in the July-August issue. What follows is the next article in a series of eight articles.

Petitioners who wish to make a substantial gift to the Church over a period of years while still ensuring that their property will ultimately be returned to them or their loved ones, may be interested in what is known as Charitable Lead Trust. This type of charitable giving will require the assistance of competent estate planning professionals, but is not as complicated as it sounds.

A Charitable Lead Trust can be flexible and provides one of a limited number of ways to control when an inheritance is received by your loved ones, while reducing taxes and probate expenses that might otherwise be due on assets left outright to the children, grandchildren or other loved ones.

In using a Charitable Lead Trust, assets are transferred to the Trust so that the Trust can pay income to the Church or other charitable recipients for a specified number of years that you determine in advance. At the end of that period, the assets are returned to you or more probably transferred to specific loved ones named by you.

The following is just one example of this type of giving:

Mrs. Apo is 75 years of age and has been advised by her attorney that her estate will be subject to significant amounts of tax at the time of her death. She has three grandchildren whose ages range from twenty to thirty.

On the advice of her attorney, Mrs. Apo creates a Trust that will take effect at the time of her death and will pay a stipulated annual sum to the Church for fifteen years, after which the assets will pass to her grandchildren in equal shares.

By making a temporary gift to the Church in this way, Mrs. Apo has met her charitable commitment to the Church and its work, while assuring that her grandchildren will receive a substantial sum at a time in their lives when they should be able to manage it successfully.

Benefitting the Church Through Your Will

Over the course of the year, a series of articles will be presented by the Keawalaʻi Endowment Committee highlighting ways that members and friends may include the Church as a beneficiary in their estate planning. You are invited to contact the committee if you are considering the Church as a beneficiary. A member of the committee will be available to assist you in your planning.

Many people use a Will as the means of distributing their estate when they die. The making of a new Will, or the amendment of an existing Will, offers an opportunity for making thoughtful gifts, including gifts to the Church.

After appropriately providing for your loved ones, you may wish to include gifts to the Church or other charitable organizations. While probably not your principal motivation, gifts to the Church and other charitable organizations are deductible from your gross estate for federal estate tax purposes.

If you would like to provide for the Church in your Will, your attorney can easily insert the appropriate provisions for a gift of a specific dollar among, a specific piece of real estate or other property, a percentage of your total estate, or a gift of the remaining balance of your assets after remembering your loved ones. You might also wish to name the Church as a contingent beneficiary in the event that one or more of your loved ones do not survive you.

The following is just one example of this type of giving:

Mrs. Kealoha has been a long-time supporter of the Church, and is concerned that a portion of her assets be used to help the Church in a special way.

Mrs. Kealohaʻs existing Will included a charitable gift to the church that would take effect only in the event her daughter did not survive her. Her daughter has now achieved financial independence, and in reviewing her Will with her attorney, Mrs. Kealoha decides to add a gift to the Church of a percentage of her estate, while still leaving the balance of her assets to her daughter.

Columbarium - Niches & Plaques

Pō'aialoha - Circle of Love" identifies the area of the church cemetery where the columbarium has been located. The columbarium contains eighty (80) niches designed to hold no more than two sealed containers of ashes. The area also includes thirty-six (36) in-ground memorial plaques for those who chose to have their ashes scattered at sea.

Details on the terms and conditions for all General Members as well as fees are processed through the work of the board's Cemetery Committee. The committee also handles matters related to the church cemetery itself.

For more information, please contact the church at (808) 879-5557. The committee will be notified of your interest.

Stewardship & Finance Committee
“Using Your Retirement Assets
as a Gift to the Church”

When planning your IRA withdrawal strategy, you may want to consider making charitable donations through a Qualified Charitable Donation (QCD).

A QCD is a direct transfer of funds from your IRA custodian, payable to a qualified charity. QCDs can be counted toward satisfying your required minimum distributions (RMDs) for the year, as long as certain rules are met.

In addition to the benefits of giving to charity, a QCD excludes the amount donated from taxable income, which is unlike regular withdrawals from an IRA. Keeping your taxable income lower may reduce the impact to certain tax credits and deductions, including Social Security and Medicare.

Also, QCDs don't require that you itemize, which due to the recent tax law changes, means you may decide to take advantage of the higher standard deduction, but still use a QCD for charitable giving.

Consult your attorney, accountant or financial advisor to see if a QCD would work for you.


 


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