There are many ways you can share your love for the animals. However, very few opportunities offer the same comfort and sense of pride that come from contributing to the long-term security and preservation of a favorite charity. Here are our favorite choices to help you to plan your lasting gift.

Wills
Wills are a convenient, easy way to ensure a lasting legacy for the animals. After ensuring that your family, friends and companion animals are taken care of, consider giving a specific dollar amount, a percentage of your estate, or all or part of what remains, including real estate or specific assets, to IDA. You may wish to notify IDA as to the terms, conditions and circumstances of your will to assure that your gift will benefit IDA for your intended purpose and in a timely fashion.

Benefits:

• Provides a specific and orderly process to transfer assets
• Retains full use of your gift property during your lifetime
• Minimizes or avoids federal estate taxes

Trusts
Trusts are often used to provide for the management and eventual distribution of your assets, and are formal legal arrangements where you choose a trustee (either yourself or someone you trust) to receive and hold legal title to property and administer the property according to your instructions. A trust can provide for your children, grandchildren or other relatives, for a number of years – with the remainder divided among any number of charities. Alternatively, a trust can provide for a charity for a number of years or a lifetime, and then go to any number of heirs or beneficiaries.

Trusts can be very simple, or they can be as complex as necessary to meet your various financial, charitable and personal goals. The following two examples are trusts that allow you to retain income from your property for life.

With a Charitable Remainder Annuity Trust your funds are held separately and invested while you (and/or another beneficiary) are paid a fixed dollar amount every year for the rest of your life – with no investment worries or responsibilities. The benefits can include a fixed and certain dollar income for you for your life, an immediate charitable deduction, a way to increase income from a low-yield holding, freedom from investment responsibilities, and avoidance of capital gains tax on appreciated assets used to fund the trust. When you die, (or after the lifetime of a surviving beneficiary) the amount remaining in the trust is available to support the animals through IDA.

With a Charitable Remainder Unitrust you also place assets in trust while you (and/or another beneficiary) receive lifetime income from the trust, after which IDA receives the remainder. The amount you receive as income, however, will increase or decrease with the value of the assets placed in the trust, which means the amount may change a little each year. If the value of the trust investments increases, you receive more income; likewise the income will be less if the value of the assets decline.

Benefits:

• Provides lifetime income for you, your spouse or a loved one
• Entitles you to an immediate charitable income tax deduction for a portion of your gift
• Defers or reduces capital gains on appreciated assets used to fund the trust, thus allowing the full sales proceeds to be reinvested
• Freedom from investment responsibilities

Charitable Gift Annuity
A Charitable Gift Annuity is an agreement between you and IDA. You transfer cash or securities to IDA and, in return, we pay you a guaranteed, fixed payment for the rest of your life. The payment schedule is flexible, and can be monthly, quarterly, semiannually or yearly. You can even name someone else as the beneficiary, or annuitant, of a gift annuity. Generally, the older you are when your gift annuity begins, the higher your scheduled payment. Upon your death, or the death of the last survivor of a “two-life” annuity, the principal underlying the annuity then becomes available to IDA.

Portions of the guaranteed annual payments you receive are tax-free. As with the amount of your payments, the older you are, the greater the tax-free percentage of each payment. You also receive a federal income tax deduction in the year you make the gift. For gifts of publicly traded securities, you will partially avoid capital gains tax.

If you itemize on taxes, you can claim an immediate federal income tax deduction. If you or the named annuitant outlives your life expectancy, the annuity payments will continue for your lifetime, but will be declarable as ordinary income. If you contribute securities that have appreciated in value over a long period of time as annuity principal, naming yourself as an annuitant, only a portion of the securities gain will be taxable and the taxable portion of the gain will be reportable over your life expectancy.

Benefits:

• Provides lifetime income for you, your spouse or a loved one
• Entitles you to an immediate charitable income tax deduction for a portion of your gift
• Part of each payment is free from federal income tax for a designated period
• Assets used to fund your annuity are generally excluded from your estate
• Defers or reduces capital gains on appreciated assets used to fund the trust, thus allowing the full sales proceeds to be reinvested

Life Insurance Policies
Life insurance policies allow you to make a gift of assets to IDA, which you may no longer need to assure the economic security of your spouse, or loved ones. There are several ways to give life insurance. You can use their cash value to immediately fund a gift or name IDA to receive all or a portion of policy proceeds at death. In addition, you could assign your annual dividends to IDA, or give a paid-up policy you already own, by changing the owner and beneficiary. You can also choose to give a policy on which you are still paying premiums, or obtain a new policy for the benefit of IDA. All of these options provide some form of tax relief. The gift is easy, private, economical, convenient and flexible!

Benefits:

• Income tax deductions are available, depending on the value of the policy
• You may name IDA as beneficiary, thus avoiding the delay and expense of probate
• With new policies designating IDA as beneficiary, premium payments are tax deductible

Securities
You may find that you have enjoyed significant gains in the stock market and other investments. If you own stock, bonds or mutual funds that have appreciated in value, you have a unique opportunity to realize double tax savings by making an outright gift!

You may make charitable gifts of stocks, bonds, mutual funds and other securities that have increased in value while bypassing capital gains tax that would be due on a sale. You can take appreciated assets and take an income tax deduction for the year of the gift based on the current fair market value of the donated property, no matter how much was originally paid for it – provided you have owned them for at least a year and a day. You can deduct up to 30% of adjusted gross income in the year of the gift, using any unused deduction in up to five future tax years.

Benefits:

• Avoidance of capital gains tax for you as well as charity when you contribute long term appreciated stocks
• Charitable contribution deduction for the full fair market value of the stock
• Your gift is deductible up to 30% of your adjusted gross income, with a 5-year carry-over for any excess

Retirement Plans
Individual Retirement Accounts (IRA’s), company sponsored pensions and profit sharing plans may be great sources for charitable giving. Usually, with just a “Change of Beneficiary” form, you can direct that retirement assets be used to make a gift from your estate, and thus preserve the rest of the estate for family and friends. If you are over age 59 _ and find that you have more than adequate retirement funds, it may be wise to withdraw a portion of these funds periodically, without penalty, to fund a charitable gift to IDA. Amounts remaining in qualified retirement plans at death may be subject to income taxes when received by heirs. Charitable gifts of retirement plan balances may often produce the greatest tax savings for your heirs and may be the best choice from an estate planning perspective.

Benefits:

• Proceeds of plans are distributed outside of probate and are entirely free from federal estate taxes
• You may name IDA as beneficiary thus avoiding the delay and expense of probate
• Qualified retirement plan assets left to a charity are generally transferred free of estate taxes

Memorial Gifts/Tributes
Honoring a loved one through charitable gifts is an especially thoughtful way of paying tribute. There are several possibilities – gifts of cash, other property, life insurance; any of the options discussed above can be implemented to establish a living memorial.

Benefits:

• Remember the people or animals you care about
• Variety of planned giving options available to establish a memorial
• Reduce certain estate and inheritance taxes, depending on your planned giving choice

Many people are often concerned about tax implications. Taxpayers are generally permitted to deduct gifts to qualified charitable institutions. You can deduct up to 50% of your adjusted gross income for gifts of cash and cash equivalents and up to 30% of your adjusted gross income for gifts of appreciated property. If you exceed these limits, the excess can be carried over and deducted over the next five years.

Note: This organization is not engaged in rendering legal or tax advisory services. For advice and assistance in specific cases, the services of an attorney or other professional advisor should be obtained. The purpose of this publication is to provide accurate and authoritative information of a general character only.

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