What You Need To Know About IRAs and The “Charitable Rollover”
There is a lot of talk now in the planned giving community about charitable gifts being made from IRAs (“Individual Retirement Accounts”). In 2006, Congress passed legislation allowing tax-free rollovers from a donor’s IRA to qualified charities. The charitable IRA rollover is one of a number of temporary tax provisions that require annual renewal. What we know right now is that the law that includes the charitable IRA rollover has not been extended for 2015, though most experts predict passage of a version of the law late in 2015

In this month's featured article, we dicuss the basics of IRAs, the types of gifts that can be made from IRAs, and what you need to know about the charitable IRA rollover.

• Quick Tip: Year-end Planning
• Marketing Corner: Marketing Day at the Planned Giving Group of New England 
• Latest GiftWrap Upgrade Includes Enhanced Payment Features
• GiftCalcs Update
• Webinar Schedule for 2016 is Available!
• Congratulations to Our iPad Raffle Winner
• CEDARS Home for Children Foundation Closes Complex Gift With Help From PG Calc

Quick Tip: Year-end Planning
Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and that means tax season will be here before you know it. Year end is a busy time for gift planners and gift administrators alike, so good communication keeps things running smoothly.

December 2015
Make sure all planned gift data is current and accurate including new gifts, deaths and severances as well as address changes.

Try to avoid establishing new gift annuities after mid-December that require 12/31 payments. Instead, gift planners can model new gift annuities with a late December gift date to combine any partial payments with the first full payments of 2016.

Confirm that all annuitants with Flexible Deferred Gift Annuities that are still in deferral have been contacted, and notify your gift administrator of any that have elected to start receiving payments in 2016. Make sure that payment and tax information corresponds to the correct start date.

Tax deadlines for 2016:
February 1, 2016 - mail 1099-Rs to gift annuitants

• We recommend masking the social security number on forms mailed to annuitants.

February 29, 2016 - send 1099-R paper forms to the IRS

• If filing fewer than 250 1099-Rs per organization tax ID number, you may submit either Copy A of the paper form or file electronically with the IRS.
• If filing paper forms, remember that SSN must not be masked on the IRS copy.

• If filing 250 or more, you must submit 1099-R information to the IRS electronically.

• Submit Form 5227 for pooled income funds and charitable remainder trusts.
• Ideally, K-1s should be sent out to beneficiaries in February.

Marketing Corner: Marketing Day at the Planned Giving Group of New England
People usually have ominous feelings about Friday the 13th, but last Friday I attended our local planned giving council meeting where November is marketing month. Nothing unlucky was happening here.

It was a day filled with “something old is new again,” refreshers, and great examples. In this month’s marketing corner I give you a few takeaways from the day. Read more >>

Latest GiftWrap Upgrade Includes Enhanced Payment Features and Security Enhancements
GiftWrap 4.2.7 was released in October, and contains a variety of enhancements that further increase the value and utility of PG Calc’s suite of gift administration software. This release focuses on expanded capabilities in the areas of payments, security, and usability.  New features include:            
- Payment enhancements:

• Batch EFT/check clearing
• Add wire and trust-to-trust in EFT mail merge file
• Option to move weekend dates to prior Friday for EFT payment files

• Upgrade of system software, incorporating extensive security enhancements
• Extensive SQL injection and cross-site scripting protections

GiftCalcs Update
In November, PG Calc updated GiftCalcs, our application for adding self-service planned gift illustrations to your website. Because GiftCalcs is web-based software, our clients didn’t need to do anything to benefit from its improvements. If you’d like to learn more about how GiftCalcs can help you offer your website visitors a more engaging experience, please visit our website or call Dave Wolfe at 888-497-4970.

Webinar Schedule for 2016 is Available!
We will be offering our popular monthly Webinar series again in 2016. We have a great schedule of topics and presenters lined up and hope that you and your colleagues will be able to join us for some or all of these sessions. Each 90-minutes session includes a 60-minute presentation full of practical information that will help you do your job better, a 30-minute Q&A period with the presenter, a pdf of the presentation slides, and a paper that covers all the content of the presentation.

We are also excited to be bringing back Craig Wruck to present his widely-lauded 4-part Fundamentals of Gift Planning series this coming March. If you or others on your fundraising staff would benefit from a thorough introduction to gift planning delivered by a masterful instructor, this is the series for you!

Click here to learn the details of next year’s Webinar series and to register. 

Congratulations to Our iPad Raffle Winner
At this year’s National Conference on Philanthropic Planning, PG Calc raffled off an iPad as a way of saying thank you to our friends in planned giving.

Sheryl Aikman, Vice President of Development at The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina, was our lucky winner. And she had a wonderful story to tell.

In July 2016, Sheryl’s two children will embark upon a year-long cross country road trip with her husband, Craig Plocica. They’ll be “road schooled” (home school on the road). “Stunned at this wonderful turn of luck,” Sheryl told us she would be giving the iPad to her children, so they can use it for their academic work and lots of video chats while she remains at home during their big adventure.

Congratulations Sheryl! We are so glad the iPad is being put to good use.

CEDARS Home for Children Foundation Closes Complex Gift With Help From PG Calc
One of the benefits of being a PG Calc client is access to our world-class support team. Kristine Morton, Director of Gift Planning, called us for help with a particularly complex gift:

In August, PG Calc helped me put together a flexible CGA proposal for a farmer who was interested in donating grain. PG Calc’s support team was able to walk me through the complex technical aspects of making this gift, and answered all of my questions.  

I am pleased to report that the grain was transferred to CEDARS Home for Children Foundation this month. The 53 year old farmer donated $11,200 worth of corn and plans to do two additional gifts – one next harvest and one the following year.

We welcome all clients to contact us with your gift planning questions large and small. Call 888-474-2252 or email support@pgcalc.com.

Learn more about CEDARS Home for Children Foundation >>