Feeling charitable?

You don’t need $400 million dollars like Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forrest to make a difference!

A common misconception is that only wealthy people leave money to charity when they die. The reality is that the majority of charitable gifts are made by everyday Australians wanting to make a positive difference to their community after they have passed away.

Unfortunately, in Australia, many local charities are struggling, being largely dependent and almost entirely funded by the gifts and generosity of others.

Fortunately, it is not difficult to make a difference and can be as simple as including the specific organisation (or type of organisation), to which you wish to receive the funds in your Will.

There are a number of ways to leave a gift in your Will, depending on whether you want to leave a physical item or a cash gift, these include:

• Pecuniary gifts – being a fixed sum of money.
• Specific gifts – being the gift of a particular item, such as property.
• Residuary gift – when the whole of your estate is left to a particular charity.
• Charitable trust – where a trust is established in your Will as a vehicle for making charitable donations over time to one or more charities.

Alternatively, if you feel like making a difference with ‘warm hands’ (while you are alive), then you may be interested in establishing a Private Ancillary Fund, which is essentially the formation of a charitable foundation which acts as a vehicle for tax effective private philanthropy.

If you wish to make an amendment to your Will to include a charitable gift or are interested in hearing more about establishing a Private Ancillary Fund, please give our Private Clients team at Hall & Wilcox a call to discuss.