10 Ways To Reap Huge Benefits From A 501(c)(3)

Karim: It’s great to be here.

Toby: Karim heads up the philanthropic division of Anderson, which means nonprofits. Karim used to work for the IRS as an IRS tax attorney in the Exempt Organization Department of our wonderful IRS. You’re trying to make up for all that you did now, right, Karim?

Karim: Yeah, still. Five years there, over 15 years in private practice, and I still haven’t made up for that. I’m halfway there.

Toby: All right. Today, we’re going to go over 10 ways that you can reap benefits with some year-end tax planning or just all your tax planning really with nonprofits. I want to dive into this, Karim, because we’re going to do 10. I’m putting on my big old ham fingers. We’re going to put up 10 reasons or ways that you can benefit. What’s the big one? What’s number one?

Karim: First, before I say this, you’re going to see a lot of information and articles that go through this and talk about the things that you can do before the end of the year. We just want to cover it with a 501(c)(3) because there are many benefits including the tax benefits, and they do apply throughout the year, whether it’s this year or next year. It doesn’t have to be just at the end of the year. Definitely, the biggest benefit is going to be reducing your taxes by donating to a 501(c)(3).

Toby: All right. We do a 501(c)(3). Just give people an idea of what it is, because when you say 501(c)(3), that’s code provision. But what’s included?

Karim: You basically would set up the entity as a nonprofit corporation at the state, and then you would obtain an EIN so you would be a separate entity, just like you would with any other corporation, LLC, partnership, whatever it may be. You’re a nonprofit corporation, and then you apply with the IRS to be able to get the exemption as a 501(c)(3).

You can’t get the 501(c)(3) just by setting it up with the state. You have to set up the state, and then you have to apply with the IRS explaining exactly what the organization does in order to be granted and to be given exemption as a 501(c)(3).

Toby: All right. I want to say timeout real quick, because this means you’re setting up your own charity that you can contribute to before the end of the year, and you could actually get a tax deduction. A lot of people probably didn’t realize that they can actually set up their own. Is that what you’re talking about?

Karim: Yeah. You can reduce your taxes if you donate to an existing 501(c)(3), but what we like to do with our clients, we have a lot of clients who are obviously within Anderson, we encourage them. Create your own 501(c)(3) organization and begin your legacy. You can have your family, they can get involved in it. That next generation can get involved in the giving as well. You can determine basically how the donations are going to be invested and where the money will be distributed as well.

Toby: Yeah. Technically, they can draw a salary out. If you set it up during your lifetime, you pass away, somebody just carries that torch, it’s out of your estate. You don’t have to probate it, you don’t have estate taxes on it.

Frankly, probably a better thing than just giving somebody a big chunk of money is giving them a purpose, especially if it’s something you care about. What about giving to an existing 501(c)(3)? Can you do that and just say, I want to give it to the Red Cross, United Way, or one of the big ones? Can I do that too?

Karim: You can definitely do that. But I think with a lot of our clients, they give to it, and maybe they want to give it for a specific reason or specific cause. They’re not sure exactly how the money is going to be distributed. They know that it’s a 501(c)(3). They know it’s a legitimate organization, but perhaps they want to keep it for a specific purpose, specific cause, maybe even specific families for example, which we’ll discuss in a minute about the benefits with that. You can do it and give it to an existing 501(c)(3). You can also do it through a donor advised fund as well. That’s another option too.

Toby: Okay, what’s that?

Karim: Donor advised fund is basically, think of Schwab, think of Vanguard, Fidelity. They’re sponsoring organizations, and they have set up a donor advised fund, where rather than you having to apply for exemption with the IRS, they’ve already obtained the exemption. Now you go to them and you say, I want to set up an account, a donor advised fund, through you. We want to fund it, and then we want to make distributions.

You have limitations with it, but basically Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard, even Anderson, we also have it as well. We would manage those assets for you. You would have an account, it’d be an account that would be allocated specifically for you and your donor advised fund. When you’re ready to make distributions to other organizations, you will let us know. As an advisor, you have advisory privileges. Then we would make those distributions on your behalf provided that it meets the conditions in the criteria.

There are specific conditions with it. You can do it, but you can’t get reasonable compensation. You can’t get paid. You don’t have the same level of control with it if you had your own 501(c)(3) as you do through a donor advised fund. Instead, it’s that sponsoring organization that has the control over it.

Toby: All right, let’s go through this just real brief, because I know we have 10 of these, and we’ve almost gotten through one of them. We could be here all day. If I set up a donor advised fund or if I use a donor advised fund, it’s basically a placeholder. It’s not the end recipient, but it allows me to get the deduction right now, and I’m putting it in the donor advised fund that I can invest in.

Is there a timeframe? Can I do this for 1 year, 2 years, 10 years? What’s the timeframe for a donor advised fund? Let’s say I’ve set up my own organization, I just don’t want to do it now. I parked the money in a donor advised fund. Is there a timeline before I want to have to distribute it?

Karim: It would depend on the sponsoring organization. If you go, again, with Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab, all of them have a requirement that you have to. You can park it in there now, but at some point you have to start making distributions to other organizations. The only thing they can do is give to other 501(c)(3) organizations. They give you usually 2–3 years that you have to do it. It’s the requirement.

Toby: If we do an Anderson one, do we have a timeline?

Karim: With us, we give about two years as well.

Toby: You want them. But is there a federal law that says here’s when you have to distribute it?

Karim: There isn’t. There’s not a federal law, but there have been talks about regulations and changes, where they don’t like the fact that all of these assets are piled up within a donor advised fund. They want to have a requirement that you make a distribution.

There’s been legislation. They’ve been going back and forth with it saying within 10 and 15 years, so it’s not even 2–3 years, it’s going to be much longer than that. But there is no rule that requires you to make a distribution sooner than that. They don’t have anything, but a lot of these sponsoring organizations do want you to make some distributions. Keep in mind, we’re not saying 100%. We’re just saying some of the money needs to be distributed to 501(c)(3) organizations.

Toby: Yes. Rule of thumb is, hey, you want to have some eminent use at some point where you’re like, hey, but there’s not a law that implodes it. All right, what’s the tax benefit? Let’s try to get to number two. We’ve done number one. You can reduce your taxes by contributing. How does it work? How much can I contribute? And what’s the tax benefit?

Karim: The tax benefits, if you make a cash contribution to a 501(c)(3), you can deduct up to 60% of your adjusted gross income. You have to determine exactly what the adjusted gross income is for you, so you can make a cash contribution to a public charity—including a donor advised fund—and you can deduct up to 60% of your adjusted gross income. Now, if you give it to a private foundation, it’s only 30%.

Toby: All right. If I make a million dollars and I give to a charity, even if I set that public charity up, there are a ton of different varieties. Again, there are so many different flavors, but you’re helping society out to cure hunger, animals, sports, whatever. There’s a whole bunch of different criteria for doing something good for society.

Let’s say I make a million dollars a year, I can write up up to $600,000 if I donate cash. If it’s a private foundation, which means it’s not engaged in anything, but it’s supporting other organizations, they see a lot of families have a private foundation, I could write off up to $300,000 in real people numbers. Let’s say you’re making $100,000 a year, that means you can donate $60,000 or $30,000, depending if it’s a public charity or that.

What if I have some of the original shares of Amazon or something like that? I bought them for next to nothing. Now they’re worth a kajillion dollars. Can I donate that, or do I have to sell it first?

Karim: No, you can donate it. You can get a deduction as well. You can deduct up to 30% of your adjusted gross income now. Like the cash, you have that limitation. If you donate it, and it’s more than that amount of your adjusted gross income, it rolls over over the next five years. You don’t lose the deductions, you just don’t get the maximum benefits in that first year.

The beauty is with your example with Amazon, if you donate an appreciated asset, you don’t have to sell it. You can donate it directly into the nonprofit. Let’s assume it doubles or quadruples in value before you’ve donated it. It’s tax-deductible. You don’t have to pay any taxes on it. If the nonprofit takes it, keeps it, and continues to grow within the nonprofit, and then the nonprofit sells it, they don’t pay any taxes on it.

You get all these tax benefits. You get these tax deductions without ever paying any taxes on an asset like Amazon that may have gone up significantly over time, without paying any taxes on it and getting all the tax benefits and the tax deductions for it.

Toby: Wow. Let’s say I bought a Bitcoin for $1000, and now it’s worth $40,000 or whatever it is today. I only spent $1000 on it. If I got a $40,000 deduction, and I’m in the highest tax bracket, that means I’m getting $12,000, $13,000, $14,000, $15,000, whatever. I should actually do the math. I can’t help myself. But $40,000 times, let’s just say it’s top bracket, that’s $14,800 as a tax deduction, I only paid $1000. How is that even fair?

Karim: That’s the tax rule. Nothing that we’re saying is different from what’s allowed under the code and the provision. You’re right. You paid $1000, you’re deducting $14,000. Here you are getting $13,000 benefits at a minimum for something that you paid. You got more in deductions than it was for what you paid for in the asset.

Toby: All right. For people who’s keeping score at home, you can reduce your taxes by making a contribution before the end of the year. You can write off up to 60% of your adjusted gross income. If it’s cash, 30%. If it’s a private foundation, I could give appreciated assets, and then I could write off 30% of my adjusted gross income if it’s a public charity. Is that 20% if it’s a private foundation?

Karim: Yes.

Toby: The public charity gives you a little more of your adjusted gross income. At the end of the day, if it’s 10% of your income, you’re tithing or something, then you do not even care. It’s going on your Schedule A so it has to exceed your standard deduction when you add it up with your mortgage interest, state and local taxes, and medical expenses that exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income. You still have to itemize, but that’s a pretty huge benefit.

What about those people that do something other than giving just money? Maybe they’re driving around doing stuff. Maybe they’re just donating their time. If I say, hey, my time is worth $100 an hour, can I get a $100 deduction if I go work at my local food bank or something like that? How does all that stuff work?

Karim: It’s going to be based on whatever expenses that you incur. If I give free services, even though I may charge a certain amount, just because I’m free, that doesn’t make it tax-deductible. But for any expenses that I incur, let’s say I am doing it for free, and I’m going to the post office to ship or deliver items, and I pay for the postage, that’s tax-deductible.

Any supplies that I may purchase as well, that’s tax-deductible. Traveling, going places, delivering items to refugees or families. I purchased those items, that’s tax-deductible. The travel expenses are tax-deductible, any gas expenses, anything that I incur. Let’s say I pay for the filing fees on behalf of the nonprofit as we’re applying for exemption with a 501(c)(3), that’s also tax-deductible. Any of these expenses that you incur on behalf of the nonprofit are all tax-deductible, treated as in-kind contributions.

Toby: How about if my neighbor’s really having a rough year, and I just start giving them some money, maybe I just give them cash, maybe I buy them food, maybe I get Christmas presents or Hanukkah presents, whatever it might be, do I get to write any of that stuff off?

Karim: No. One of the benefits of a 501(c)(3) is if you do it individually, giving it to support families that are in need as a charitable class, that’s not tax-deductible. But if you do it through a 501(c)(3) organization that you have set up, and the purpose of it is you want to help families, individuals who are in need including your neighbors or people that you know, this is a charitable class. If you donate to your 501(c)(3), it would be tax-deductible once you make those distributions. Even though you can’t do it directly, you can do it through a 501(c)(3) organization.

Toby: Right. We need to have a 501(c)(3) if we want to help our neighbor out. You see this all the time. Somebody sets up some sort of GoFundMe or something like that, where my neighbor just had a fire, their Christmas, because I remember we did this with a family, I just remember them because they were Packers fans, so we went and bought a bunch of Packers gear and things like that. Their house had burned down during the holidays, and it took everything with them. They were in a hotel for Christmas, life threw them a curveball, if I do a GoFundMe, can I write that off?

Karim: I’ve seen the same example. An individual gets in a car accident. He’s in the hospital. There are significant medical bills. He has to go through rehab. He has a wife, he has four or five kids, he’s the only one who’s making money. Now the family needs to be supported not only for the medical bills, but to cover their everyday expenses. We’ve seen GoFundMe pages like that and hundreds of thousands, even close to a million dollars that I have seen in contributions to this.

None of it is tax-deductible from individuals. Even the millions of dollars that were contributed to this, it’s not tax-deductible if you do it directly to the GoFundMe page. But if you do it through a 501(c)(3) that’s supporting those families that are in need such as this, obviously this is a distressed family in need of support for medical expenses, medical care, and to help cover their everyday expenses as well, this would be charitable. If you do it through a 501(c)(3) organization, it would be tax-deductible again.

Toby: How about when we see stuff going on internationally? I feel like poop, there’s something bad that’s occurred internationally, tsunami hit, there’s a fire, there are refugees, whatever, and I just feel, you know what? I really want to help. Can I write that off?

Karim: Again, if you do it directly giving it to these causes, including UNICEF is a perfect example, and we know this is an organization that provides a global relief, especially for children all over the world, it’s not a US-based 501(c)(3) organization, so you cannot give directly to not only UNICEF, but to provide support to these other organizations or individuals.

We have a lot of clients who want to give back to their communities in villages where they grew up. They want to build orphanages, they want to build hospitals, they want to build schools as well. Even water wells are very common.

If you give to these internationally as an individual, it’s not tax-deductible. But if you set up a 501(c)(3) that’s going to be supporting these causes, again, these are all charitable activities, set up the 501(c)(3) that has discretion and control over the use of the funds and makes those distributions to further these charitable purposes, then yes, it would be tax-deductible. Again, you can’t do it directly, but you can do it through a 501(c)(3).

Toby: All right. Now, if I set up that 501(c)(3), that is one of the benefits that now I’m in control of the purse strings?

Karim: Yeah, you can control how the money will be spent. It must be in furtherance of the charitable purpose of the nonprofit. You can control it, manage it, watch it grow. Hopefully at some point, as you’re ready to make the distributions, when you see that there’s a specific cause, or specific thing that you want to donate to, then you can do it at that point. You have control over that and get the tax deductions.

Toby: Let’s make this real. I’m somebody who says, I’ve always really wanted to do something on the charitable side, maybe you want to have an amateur sports league, or maybe you really do care about your community, and maybe you want to do veterans housing, recovery housing, transitional housing, housing for moderate- to low-income folks. Section eight, by the way, is like a charitable activity. Maybe that’s you, or maybe it’s religious, or maybe it’s teaching fill in the blank.

Maybe it’s because you love cats and dogs, and you want to help save them. Can I set this up? Do I have to jump through a bunch of hoops when I set it up to be a public charity? Or is there a period of time when I can just set this puppy up, treat it as a public charity, and I get a great spirit?

Karim: It’s easy to set up, first of all, to do it, at least from our perspective.

Toby: From your perspective, it might be easy. For most people, they have no idea. It’s a state filing and a federal 1023 or 1024 app, which is that thick. It’s hundreds of questions that you’re going to be answering. You set it up.

Karim: Yeah, set it up.

Toby: It’s easy for you, hard for us. But you’re still old hat at it that you could do it in your sleep, probably.

Karim: Pretty much. It can be daunting because of just the steps that you have to do and what you have to do in terms of setting up the entity and the application process. Once you set it up, once you’ve applied for exemption, and you decide that you want to fund this nonprofit organization, you can do it immediately. You can get a tax deduction while you’re waiting to decide exactly what you want to do with the money.

If you want to keep it for a couple of years and then make the distributions, you can do that. We don’t recommend that you do it for more than four or five years, because if it continues to stay in there, the IRS is going to assume that it has been dormant, and they’re going to assume that it was more self-serving for you to get the tax benefits without actually doing it for a charitable cause.

We say, give it a couple of years until you know exactly where you want to do it, or where you want to operate and how you want to distribute the money. But you can keep it in there, and get those tax deductions right now and then decide how you […].

Toby: I want to make sure. Are you talking about using a donor advised fund or are you talking about putting it into a charitable organization that’s just sitting on the money for a little while?

Karim: No, I’m talking about a charitable organization that you create and the one that you can have control over in terms of how it’s managed. Again, you’re a fiduciary for this organization. You’re making sure that everything you’re doing is in furtherance of the charitable purpose of what the nonprofit does, but you have discretion as to how it’s going to be spent, how it’s going to be invested, and you can decide at a later time when you can do it.

As opposed to the donor advised fund, where you have limited discretion with what you can do, within the nonprofit, you can decide. For example, if you want to bring on people and pay them reasonable compensation to work, manage, and carry out these activities, you can do that.

If you want to give to individuals, as we’ve given as examples before, you can do all of those things. You can’t do that in a donor advised fund. You can’t give internationally a donor advised fund, but you can through this 501(c)(3) organization that you control. You have a number of benefits, not only tax benefits, but there are other benefits with it as well.

Toby: I set up a charity. I guess I know the answer, but I’ll just ask it of you so that you could give people direction. But if I set it up, and then I go get my exemption, I heard that exemptions can take nine months, over a year in some cases. Does it relate back to the date that I filed it, or can I only make charitable donations after I get my exemption?

Karim: No, it relates back. It’s retroactive to the date that you incorporated it. As soon as you incorporate the entity, and you decide that you want to make a contribution into the nonprofit, even if it takes nine months, even if it takes two years, as long as you file it, immediately apply for exemption right away, and then you can get the exemption. It will apply retroactively. Even if it’s taken a year or two, you will get the tax deduction because the effective date of exemption was the date that it was incorporated, which was before you made the contribution, so it would apply retroactively.

Toby: If I set up an organization because of year-end tax planning, and I set it up in December 15th, I filed for my exemption, and I don’t have a bank account yet, December 31st rolls around, and I want to stroke the check, I write that check, let’s say I donate $10,000 to my charity, would that be a deduction this year as long as I set up that bank account and negotiate that check that within a reasonable time?

Karim: Yes.

Toby: That will actually be a donation. Even though I don’t have my exemption letter back from the IRS, let’s say that sometime next year or the year after I make the contribution, I get that exemption letter, there’s nothing I have to do, I already took the deduction?

Karim: Yeah. Make sure for sure whether it’s to this 501(c)(3), you set up. Any organization that you want to donate to, the effective date is if you write a check, it’s the date that you file or send that check. If it’s December 31st that you send it, send it in the mail, then it will apply. You can get the deductions this year. If it’s your own 501(c)(3), we’re going to tell you, you better make sure you deposit that check right away.

You can deposit it in January, but you have to deposit it right away, because you’re on both sides of the transaction. Yes, you can get the tax deduction as long as the organization is a 501(c)(3) and becomes a 501(c)(3), then yes, it would be tax-deductible for that.

Toby: Wow, get her done is what you’re saying.

Karim: Exactly.

Toby: Right. Let me just go through it. I want to run it. I know that we have one more, but I want to go over the nine that we just went over. We can reduce our taxes. There are big tax benefits up to 60% of your AGI for cash donations. You could also donate appreciated stock or other assets. It could be crypto, it could be real estate, it could be stocks that you’ve held for a while. You can do in-kind contributions like postage, traveling, purchasing goods on behalf of an organization.

If you’re going to support families domestically—it should be number five—you want to set up a 501(c)(3), you can do that and get a benefit. If you do GoFundMe or things like that, do that through your own charity. International support of charitable causes, you have to make sure that it’s a domestic entity. But then if you set up a charity here, you can actually support international causes and get the deduction here.

When you run your own charity, you actually have a great degree of control as to what money will be spent. You can actually make a contribution during the year. Even though you don’t have your exemption letter back, it’ll relate back to the data that you filed with the Secretary of State of whatever state you’re doing business in, and it’ll relate back. That’s number 9, which brings us to number 10, however we do it.

My toes are standing up right now. You can create a family legacy. I want to talk about that one as our last one. I really want you to hit on that. Why would somebody want to consider doing a public charity or private foundation as part of their legacy planning?

Karim: There’s no doubt. We say this. Call this anecdotal, but we’ve seen this from the hundreds of clients that we’re representing, even the thousands of clients. They want to get their family involved. They want to make an impact. They know that if they get their kids involved at an early age, this is going to have an impact on them for the rest of their lives. It’s something that they want to keep doing, for sure. It’s even affected my family.

Getting your family involved, having control as to where the money is going to be distributed. You’re going to see the impact that it’s going to make on people. This is what many people want to do, they want to make a difference. They want to have control over it. They don’t want to give to another 501(c)(3) organization.

Even though it may be trustworthy, they want to have control about where they can distribute the money. They want to determine how their donations are going to be invested, where the money will be distributed, when it’s going to be distributed, and then of course, as we said, they can decide how to make that impact. You mentioned affordable housing before. We’ve even done shared housing, which is common.

Humanitarian relief is extremely popular, where you get food, clothing, shelter, medical expenses covering the medical expenses of families. Also international giving. As you said, assisting veterans is extremely popular. The animal shelter and sanctuary, educational resources to empower low income families as well, and scholarships. These are all just common examples of what we see. And they want to be involved in it, being able to help these families directly, being able to help these individuals directly. They can make that impact.

Again, it’s something that lasts the rest of their lives. Many people who are wealthier decide at some point when they retire. You don’t just have to be wealthy. People retire, and they decide they want to do this and focus on this full-time. They want this to be their passion to do for the rest of their lives as well and getting the family. It is a big thing, it’s an important thing, and we’ve seen this happen more and more and more among our clients.

Toby: Just to add my two cents, it’s outside of your state. If you’re somebody who’s got a substantial net worth north of $25 million, and you know that the feds are going to be nailing your estate for 40%, when you pass away, your spouse passes away, or you’re single, it’s $13 million, and you’re above that, they’re taking a huge chunk if you donate it to charity ahead of time, even your own charity. It’s out of your estate, nobody can take it from you.

Instead of just giving somebody a big pile of cash, let’s say I pass away, and I have a whole bunch of real estate, I have a whole bunch of cash, and everything else, I just dump it on my family heirs or my kids, instead of doing that, I’m giving them something that they could actually avoid probate with, avoid the temptation to take it all and try to buy a Ferrari, Lamborghini, or other great life choices that you can make where you get a windfall.

They would work for the organization so they would get paid a salary, reasonable salary, plus maybe their expenses are reimbursed. You can bring other family members, you could have a board in there, and then they’re piloting and stewarding something you created.

Your legacy becomes their legacy, becomes their kids legacy, becomes your great grandkids legacies, and your great-great-great-great-great-great-grandkids legacy. These things don’t die, they just continue on. They just keep going forward. What a cool way to do estate planning. Sorry to step right on you on that one. I just can’t resist.

Is there anything else, Karim, that somebody should be considering? Again, we’re going to call this 10 ways that you can reap rewards or something from a 501(c)(3). But is there anything that we’re missing?

Karim: No. I think we’ve covered everything. I would say, let us help you for sure. If you want to do this, if this is something that you want to do of creating your own 501(c)(3), then it’s something that Anderson can help you with, because again, we’ve done this thousands of times. It’s new to you, but it’s not new to us because we’ve done it so many times.

Toby: Absolutely. I’ll put the contact information down there. Like and subscribe if you like this type of content. If you will and you’re still listening, then go down in the comments and say what kind of charity you might be interested in doing. You can even ask, hey, does this count? We’ll do our best to respond and say, yeah, you can do that.

People don’t realize, IKEA is a charity of almost every major university as a charity. The Green Bay Packers are a charity, National Hockey League as a charity, Major League Baseball as a charity. Almost every hospital is a charity. Even Alabama where they pay Nick Saban a tremendous amount of money in the University of Michigan are all charities.

Yes, there can be a whole bunch of benefits that come out of them. All they are is these really cool institutions, you can create your own and get some benefit. If you know anybody that would benefit from this information, please share it. Otherwise, down in those comments below, tell me about your ideas of what you’d like to do as a charitable activity, and we’ll do our best to see whether it’s yay or nay. We’ll do it as a little informal contest too to see who has the best idea.

Karim, thanks for joining us again. I appreciate your wisdom, sir. If anybody wants to reach out to Karim, we’ll make sure that he’s easy to get a hold of.

Karim: Thank you.