A way to remember the Cashiers-Highlands Humane Society with a gift that honors your beloved dog or cat
With just a few simple words in your will you can help animals long into the future. Plan a bright future for yourself, your family, your pets, and the animals at CHHS who need you. Use your assets as you need them and then leave a lasting legacy in your will to the many dogs and cats that need help.
For More Information:
please call David Stroud
828-743-5752
If you have already included Cashiers-Highlands Humane Society in your will or trust, please let us know so we can thank you for your generous contributions.
Legacy Society is an initiative to promote planned giving among those who hold CHHS close to their heart. You also gain the satisfaction of directing your gift to three important areas: support of the facilities, direct support of the animals, and program development. Help to ensure that the humane society you love will have the resources necessary to sustain it into the future.
Gifts to CHHS are essential to the continued growth, strength, and excellence of our organization, and a planned gift is one of the best ways to represent a sound investment for generations to come.
Benefits of Establishing a Planned Gift to Cashiers-Highlands Humane Society
Your financial objectives change from accumulating assets to managing their preservation and eventual distribution. Determine your current income needs, how much to preserve funds for future needs and what to leave for heirs and charitable organizations such as CHHS. Avoid onerous “unknown tax” burdens on qualified pensions and retirement plan assets at death. Naming CHHS as a beneficiary avoids these tax problems while supporting a worthy cause.
The reasons to consider these gifts are as different and meaningful as the people who make the gifts. Enjoy substantial tax savings and take advantage of tax exemptions--both current income tax deductions and estate/gift tax deductions. There are several ways to accomplish this structure.
Testamentary Gift
Naming CHHS in your will decreases your estate and gift tax and provides a permanent way to insure a healthy CHHS for healthy pets. This gift can be made with a codicil. A codicil is a legal document that allows you to make changes to your will without having to rewrite the entire document. You can use a codicil to add, remove, or change provisions in your will, such as adding new arrangements or removing old ones. You can name CHHS to receive a designated amount or a percentage of your estate.
Gifts of Life Insurance
A gift of life insurance is an inexpensive way to help CHHS. You can give a current policy where you name CHHS as owner and beneficiary and deduct the cash value from your income tax. If the policy is not paid up, CHHS can bill you for the policy premium each year and that gift will be tax deductible.
You can also name CHHS as a partial beneficiary to your life insurance policy. In this way, CHHS will benefit along with other charities or your heirs.
Gifts of Required Minimum Distribution During Your Lifetime
A gift of the distribution to CHHS each year will save you federal and state income taxes. In fact, studies have shown that a gift of the RMD to charity is a more tax advantaged strategy than taking the distribution and then writing checks to the charity.
Gifts of Retirement Plan Assets
Like many Americans, you are aware that retired plan accumulation is a positive financial plan. Many of our supporters are required to take a required minimum distribution (RMD) each year. These distributions are considered ordinary income for tax purposes. They can ‘push’ you into a higher tax bracket.
The undistributed balance of qualified retirement plans is fully includable in your gross estate for estate tax purposes. Since the funds in retirement accounts usually represent deferred compensation that has not been subject to income tax, giving the accounts to individual heirs exposes these funds to income taxes. Your retirement dollars can be seriously depleted by this double taxation.
Gifts of Retirement Assets at Death
Retirement accounts at death are often exposed to income taxes and estate taxes, at a combined marginal rate north of 50%. The estate tax, as currently written will affect more people in 2026. Yet many of these taxes can be avoided or reduced through a carefully planned charitable gift.
- Your account can pass directly to a charitable organization as a primary or secondary beneficiary. If you prefer to make your spouse the primary beneficiary of the retirement account, you can name CHHS as the secondary beneficiary.
- Make your beneficiaries aware that they will need to take RMDs. The rules can be complicated. In many cases, beneficiaries other than a spouse or required to take the distribution over 10 years. A tax advisor can help explain the requirements to you and your beneficiaries.
Providing Additional Cash Flow During Retirement: Charitable Trusts
If you would like additional cash flow during retirement while still providing for our mission, a charitable remainder trust or polled income fund allows you to do both. These gifts offer lifetime payments to you and/or a surviving spouse before the remainder is distributed to CHHS.
- A charitable remainder trust provides increased lifetime income to you and the trust’s balance to your chosen charitable organizations, reduces the size of your taxable estate, provides a partial income tax deduction, and eliminates capital gains tax on appreciated assets used to fund the trust.
- A naming opportunity gift is created at the termination of the trust (last to die) and creates an enduring legacy and helps to ensure the future of the Humane Society
This information is not intended as legal advice. You should contact an attorney to help you with estate planning and implementation. This is not difficult to do and can often be accomplished with a few words in your will.
