Four reasons you should give stock donations a try:
You can give more
By donating stock that has appreciated for more than a year, you are actually giving 20 percent more than if you sold the stock and then made a cash donation. The reason is simple: avoiding capital gains taxes. The maximum federal capital gains tax rate is 20 percent on long-term holdings. If you donate the stock directly to a charity, there’s no capital gains tax to pay. Plus, you are still eligible to deduct the full fair-market value of the asset you donated from your income taxes, up to the overall amount allowed by the IRS. Your appreciated assets can also include assets that are not publicly traded, bitcoin.
You can potentially reduce future capital gains
Many investors have stocks that they love and want to hold for the long term. Any appreciation of that stock’s value confirms your belief in it, but it can also set the stage for substantial gains when you sell. So consider donating some of your appreciated shares and then buying new shares to reset your cost basis at the current, higher price. This will reduce your future capital gains tax exposure if the stock continues to grow in value.
You can give your portfolio a health check
If a review of your investments’ gains and losses shows that it’s time to rebalance your portfolio to maximize its performance and optimize for risk, donating stock can give your portfolio the health check it needs. Implementing a donation strategy puts your capital gains to work funding your philanthropy.
You can donate stocks without headaches
Some people may not be interested in donating stock because they think it will require a lot of paperwork and phone calls, or that their chosen charity may not be able to easily accept a stock donation but it is quite simple.
To be eligible for a charitable deduction for a tax year, donations of stock need to be received by the end of the year. Because different assets take different amounts of time to be transferred, you should initiate your transactions as early as possible.
For more information, contact Kim Pietro, vice president of institutional advancement at 716-829-7556 or pietrok@dyc.edu.