Giving Now and in the Future
When Dan and Sue* wanted to pass their wealth to their children in a way that wouldn’t cost them large amounts of gift or estate tax, their advisor encouraged them to establish a charitable lead trust. They made a large gift to lead trust and set an annual payout to cover the annual charitable gifts.

The trustee makes an annual distribution to their donor advised fund at The Minneapolis Foundation, and each year they recommend grants from the fund to their choice of charities. Dan and Sue do not have to pay additional gift tax on the growth in the trust and they didn’t actually pay any tax because they used part of their gift tax exclusion.

Now that the gift tax exclusion has been raised from $1 million to $4 million for each of them, they are thinking about setting up another trust to take advantage of this very timely opportunity. Throughout the years, Dan and Sue have supported a breadth of organizations through this giving vehicle and have dramatically shaped the diversity of the Twin Cities art community, creating opportunities for all communities to enjoy and participate in art activities.

*Names have been changed.