Charitable Lead Trust

If your goal is to provide an inheritance for your children, but you would also like to make a significant charitable gift through your estate, find out how a charitable lead trust can help you satisfy both objectives. It's a charitable lead trust that can provide a significant charitable gift through your estate and provide an inheritance to your children. 

When people think about providing an inheritance to children and making a significant charitable gift through their estates, a vehicle known as the "charitable lead trust" is an excellent way to accomplish both objectives.

A charitable lead trust is a trust that the estate owner establishes either during life (an inter vivos trust) or at death (a testamentary trust). The income from the trust flows to a charitable organization, like United Way of Greenville County, for a stated number of years. After that period, the assets inside the trust are then distributed. The fact that the assets will one day be transferred to another person means that this trust has one further distinction: it is a "nongrantor" trust, as opposed to a grantor trust. "Nongrantor" means the trust assets are not owned by the person who established the trust, and the assets are not going to be returned to him or her someday. (A "grantor" trust is one in which the donor controls the assets, deciding where they will eventually be distributed. As a result, the donor is subject to tax on the assets.)

For information on charitable lead trusts, contact Kathy Wright (kwright@unitedwaygc.org) at 864.467.3506.

The information on this site is not intended as legal tax or investment advice.          

For such advice, please consult an attorney.