• A gift of a particular amount of money. For example, you give $25,000.
• A gift of a specific item or items. For example, you give 1,000 shares of ABC Corporation.
• A gift that will be made only if one or more conditions are met. For example, you give $25,000 provided we still offer a particular program or service and your spouse does not survive you.
• A gift that will be made from the remainder of your estate once all other bequests, debts, and taxes have been paid. For example, you give 25% of the remainder of your estate. Often called a "residuary bequest," this approach assures that your family will be taken care of before your estate makes a bequest to us.

• An Unrestricted Bequest: This is a gift for our general purposes. This can be the most useful kind of gift because it allows us to put your gift to the best possible use at the time we receive it.
• A Restricted Bequest: This is a gift for a specific use, such as a special project or program that is important to you. It is best for you to consult with us before placing restrictions on your bequest to be sure we can carry out your wishes.
• An Endowed Bequest: This is a gift where our organization invests your donation along with the rest of our endowment. We distribute these funds in accordance with our endowment spending policy. This approach assures that your gift will continue to benefit us long after you're gone. An endowed bequest can be restricted or unrestricted.
• An Honorary Bequest: This is a gift made in honor of someone else. Any form of bequest can also be an honorary bequest. We would be pleased to recognize the people you wish to honor with your gift.

• Legal name: Protestant Episcopal High School in Virginia
• Current address: 1200 N. Quaker Lane Alexandria, VA 22302
• Tax identification number: 54-0506326

• Make Episcopal  a designated beneficiary of a life insurance policy.
• Make Episcopal  a designated beneficiary of an IRA or other retirement plan.
• Make Episcopal  a designated beneficiary of savings bonds.
• Instruct your bank to "pay on death" to Episcopal  some or all of a specific bank account.
• Instruct your brokerage firm to "transfer on death" to Episcopal some or all of a specific brokerage or other financial account.

An alternative to a charitable bequest is to designate Episcopal as the beneficiary of your retirement account assets. This gift is simple because there is no need to modify your will or living trust. All you need to do is complete a beneficiary designation form with your plan administrator.

A gift of retirement assets has the added advantage of being a very tax-wise way to make an estate gift. This is because your retirement assets, if left to individuals, will be subject to income tax when they receive distributions and, for most non-spouses, those distributions must take place within 10 years, potentially pushing your beneficiaries into higher income tax brackets. If you give your retirement assets to a tax-exempt organization such as Episcopalname, 100 percent of the retirement assets will be available for its charitable purposes. If you want to remember us in your estate plan, a tax-efficient strategy is to leave other types of assets — cash, securities, real estate—to your heirs and give the more heavily taxed retirement assets to Episcopal. 

Note: Directing your retirement assets to both charitable and noncharitable beneficiaries can accelerate the income tax. Always consult with your advisors before naming the beneficiaries of your retirement assets.

Commercial Annuity Contracts

• A commercial annuity will sometimes have a remaining value at the end of the annuitant’s lifetime. You can name Episcopal to receive all or part of this amount by designating us as a beneficiary (sole or partial) on the appropriate form from the insurance company.

Bank Accounts

• You can instruct your bank to pay Episcopal all or a portion of what remains in a checking or savings account. Your bank can provide you with the appropriate beneficiary designation form.

Investment Accounts

• You can instruct your investment company to transfer to Episcopal some or all investments held in the account at the time of your passing. Your broker or agent can help you complete the process, which may be as simple as amending the name on the account to include Episcopal.

 A Charitable Remainder Unitrust can help you maintain or increase your income while making a significant gift to Episcopal High School. The charitable remainder unitrust is highly flexible. You can easily make gifts of assets that are not easily converted to cash using the unitrust. Additional contributions can be made to the trust at any time. If your unitrust grows, your payments will grow too, providing a potential hedge against inflation.

A Charitable Remainder Annuity Trust is similar to a unitrust, except that the amount of the distributions is fixed for the existence of the trust. The amount of the trust distributions is calculated by multiplying the fair market value of the assets you contributed to the trust times the pay-out rate. Unlike a unitrust, assets can only be contributed when you establish the trust.

Make a substantial gift to Episcopal in the form of fixed annual payments and pass assets to your family or other heirs at reduced gift and estate tax cost.
A charitable lead annuity trust may be right for you if:

• You have substantial assets that you do not need currently for your own financial security.
• You want to provide for your family or other heirs.
• You want to save gift taxes, estate taxes, and probate costs.
• You want your gift to make a difference at Episcopal starting immediately.
• You could consider a gift of $100,000 or more to benefit Episcopal and your heirs.

Separate Trust

A charitable lead annuity trust is a separate taxable trust governed by an irrevocable trust agreement. You choose the trustee who is responsible for administering your lead trust and guiding the investment of its assets.

Irrevocable Gift

A charitable lead annuity trust is an irrevocable arrangement. Once you transfer assets to create the trust, you cannot change your mind and get the assets back. This requirement assures that all of the payments promised in the trust agreement will go to support Episcopal.

Make Fixed Payments to Episcopal Each Year

Your lead annuity trust makes payments to Episcopal each year of a fixed amount for as long as the trust lasts. Your lead trust can make payments to more than one charity, if you wish.

You Choose the Payment Amount

You choose the amount that your lead annuity trust must distribute to Episcopal each year. Lead trust donors typically select a payment amount that is likely to preserve a substantial remainder for family or other heirs. Payments are usually made in annual installments, but semiannual or quarterly installments are possible.

Remaining Assets to Heirs

When your charitable lead annuity trust ends, all remaining principal in the trust will be transferred to the family members or other heirs you choose.

How Long can my Lead Trust Last?

While most lead annuity trusts last for a specified term of 10-20 years, other terms are possible. Your lead annuity trust can last for one or more lives or for a specific length of time, or for a combination of lives and years. The term length you choose will depend on when you want your heirs to receive their trust distribution and the size of the gift or estate tax charitable deduction you want the trust to generate, as well as other factors.

Tax Benefits

Unlike other charitable trusts, the charitable lead annuity trust generates a gift or estate tax charitable deduction, not an income tax charitable deduction.

• Reduce or eliminate gift or estate tax on gift to heirs if your estate exceeds the then applicable estate tax credit.
• Avoid all gift and estate tax on asset growth.

When you transfer assets to your lead annuity trust, you make a taxable gift to the individuals who will receive your trusts principal when it ends. However, your gift of payments to Episcopal earns you a gift or estate tax charitable deduction in the year of your gift that will reduce, and in some cases, eliminate, your taxable gift if your estate exceeds the then applicable estate tax credit.

Some lead annuity trust donors make a point of picking a term length and payout rate that reduces their taxable gift to zero. Doing so eliminates any possibility that they will have to pay gift or estate tax on their gift.

In addition, the assets in your lead annuity trust are removed from your taxable estate. This means that any growth in the value of your trusts assets during its term can be passed on to your heirs completely free of gift and estate taxes.

Taxation of the Trust

A lead annuity trust is a taxable trust. However, a lead trust pays income tax only if its income exceeds the amount it pays to Episcopal during the year. A careful trustee can balance your lead annuity trusts income against its charitable payments in order to minimize the income taxes paid by the trust.

Lead Annuity Trusts for Grandchildren

Lead annuity trusts for the benefit of grandchildren present special tax planning challenges related to a tax called the generation skipping tax. For example, you may want to consider creating a charitable lead unitrust in this situation, as it is easier to plan for generation skipping tax issues when creating a lead unitrust than when creating a lead annuity trust. Please be sure to talk to your advisors or to us about these tax considerations

Suitable Funding Assets

You can fund your lead annuity trust with many different kinds of assets. All of the following assets can work well:

• cash
• securities
• a closely held business
• commercial property
• a combination of these assets

Assets that are likely to increase substantially in value over time can be especially attractive candidates for transfer into a lead trust.

Unlike with many other planned gifts, it can be problematic to fund a lead trust with highly appreciated property. Since a lead trust is fully taxable, selling a highly appreciated asset may cause the trust to owe taxes that will deplete its principal. You will want to work closely with your advisors to pick an asset or combination of assets that will best achieve your goals for your gift.

Receive immediate cash and make a gift to Episcopal by selling to us a valuable asset, such as real estate, for less than it is worth.

A bargain sale may be right for you if:

• You want additional cash now.
• You itemize your deductions and want to save income taxes.
• You want to save capital gains tax on the sale of your property.
• You own a valuable asset that you are willing to sell for less than it is worth.
• You want to make a gift to Episcopal.

How It Works

You sell real estate or other property to Episcopal for less than it is worth. You receive immediate cash equal to your sale price. Your property becomes ours to use or sell.
A bargain sale is a simple agreement in which you sell property, such as real estate or some other valuable asset, to Episcopal for less than the property is worth.

Eligible property

It is possible to sell any sort of property to Episcopal for a bargain price. In addition to real estate, you can complete a bargain sale arrangement with collectibles such as artwork or antiques, other personal property, or securities. Please contact us about the property you are considering so that we can discuss whether we would be interested in acquiring the property for a bargain price.

Tax benefits

You will receive an income tax charitable deduction in the year of your gift. The amount of your deduction will equal the difference between the fair market value of the property you donate and your sale price. Your income tax savings will depend on if you itemize your deductions. (Note that if your bargain sale asset is tangible personal property, such as artwork or antiques, that Episcopal does not put to a use related to our exempt purpose, your deduction will be based on your cost basis rather than the fair market value of the property.)

You will also avoid capital gains tax on a portion of your capital gain in the gift property. For example, if you sell your property to us for one third of its fair market value, you will pay capital gains tax on just one third of your capital gain in the property. If the asset you sell to us is subject to debt, this debt will be added to your sales proceeds to determine your capital gains tax.

By removing your property from your estate, you may also reduce estate taxes and probate costs when your estate is settled.

Special considerations

If you are interested in selling us real estate or tangible personal property at a bargain price, you will need to establish the value of your property by obtaining a qualified independent appraisal.

To be valid for claiming your income tax charitable deduction, your appraisal must be conducted no more than 60 days before the bargain sale is completed and no later than the due date, including extensions, of the tax return for the year in which you make your gift.

If you are considering a gift of real estate, our organization requires the following additional steps before we accept your gift:

• We will need to examine your property and conduct our own analysis of its value. For example, we will want to know if there are any debts, taxes, or liens owed on your property.
• Once we accept your gift of real estate, we could become responsible for cleaning up any environmental problems your property may have. This sort of cleanup could be very expensive. Therefore, before we accept any gift of real estate, we routinely conduct a review to make sure the property has no environmental issues.