If you want to protect your assets but also give to the University of Kentucky Chandler Medical Center, financial advisors and a Medical Center Development Officer can help you design a trust or bequest that will accomplish both goals.

Bequests allow you to transfer, through your will, property (cash, stocks, real estate, works of art and antiques, among others) to a charitable institution such as the Medical Center. Bequests often allow donors to make a more substantial gift that they would have been able to do during their lifetime. When you make a bequest to the Medical Center, your taxable estate is reduced by a 100 percent estate tax deduction for the amount of a cash bequest, or the fair market value of property. This deduction results in tax savings whenever the taxable estate – after other deductions – exceeds the amount offset by individual estate tax credits. Because the estate tax rate schedule is progressive (the rate of taxation increases with the size of the estate), the larger the taxable estate, the greater the potential tax savings per dollar given.

Trusts allow you to transfer assets – such as real estate, securities, bonds, partnership interests, oil and gas properties, and the like – to your children or others while saving on gift and estate taxes. Trusts permit income from the assets to go to a charitable institution for a fixed period of time after which the assets become available to you, your heirs or others.

The following pages describe the various types of bequests and trusts and their benefits.

For more information about making a trust, please contact a development officer or Dion Guest, gift planning officer, at (859) 257-7303.