Charitable Remainder Trusts: How to Complete Your Gift

After you decide who should serve as your trustee, work with your attorney to follow these five steps to create a charitable trust that fits your financial needs.

1. Decide which assets you'd like to put into the trust. Donating appreciated, low-yield stock or real estate you've owned longer than one year is typically more advantageous than giving cash. You may boost your cash flow by means of a higher payout from the trust. And you'll escape up-front tax on the asset's capital gain.
2. Determine who you want to receive the payments and how much. The rate you select must be at least 5 percent. Usually, the rate selected is 5 percent to 7 percent. Also consider whether you want someone else to receive payments, too.
3. Consider how long you'd like the payments to last. Would you like to receive payments for your lifetime (or the lifetime of another beneficiary) or for a fixed number of years, up to 20?
4. Decide which type of charitable remainder trust will work best for you. You can choose to receive payments that vary from year to year (unitrust) or steady payments (annuity trust). Choosing a unitrust allows you to make gifts of additional assets into your unitrust at any time in the future.
5. Decide which charities you'd like to receive the balance of the trust after your lifetime (or the fixed term). Please let us know if you include PETA in your trust so we can thank you for your generosity and support of PETA's work for animals. We can be reached at plannedgiving@peta.org.

Quick Tip
We are happy to work with you and your tax and legal advisors to ensure your charitable trust meets your goals.

	Read more about unitrusts or annuity trusts.