The Charitable Remainder Trust allows you to make a gift today while you continue to receive the income from the gift for your lifetime with the remainder given to a Baptist cause at your death. The Charitable Remainder Trust is flexible allowing the income to be paid to you and your spouse or you, your spouse, and your children.

 

A Charitable Remainder Trust is a trust in which you irrevocably place cash, securities or other property, but keep a specified income for life or for a term of years. When the trust ends, the assets remaining in the account go to the Baptist cause or causes you specified. The Charitable Remainder Trust offers a little more flexibility and planning options than does the Gift Annuity. You can establish a Charitable Remainder trust during your lifetime or at your death through your Last Will and Testament. There are two types of Charitable Remainder trusts, the Annuity Trust and the Unitrust.

 

 

A Unitrust offers even more planning flexibility as you seek to provide income for yourself or others and make a gift to a Baptist cause. During the Unitrust’s term, the trustee (For example, a bank trust department or the Mississippi Baptist Foundation) invests the trust’s assets. Each year, the trustee distributes a fixed percentage of the Unitrust’s current value, as revalued annually, to the income beneficiaries of the trust. If the Unitrust’s value goes up from one year to the next, its payout increases proportionately. Likewise, if the Unitrust’s value goes down, the amount it distributes also goes down. For this reason, it may be to a donor’s advantage to chose a relatively low payout percentage so that the Unitrust assets can grow, which in turn will allow the Unitrust’s yearly payments to grow. A donor can add funds to a Unitrust whenever they like. A charitable remainder Unitrust can be for the life of one or more beneficiaries, a fixed term of not more than 20 years or a combination of the two.

 

There are different types of Charitable Remainder Unitrust. One type makes its distributions to the income beneficiaries from income or from trust principal should income not be adequate. Another type only pays the income earned to the income beneficiaries, and still another combines the two types “flipping from one type to the other at a designated time or at the occurrence of some pre-determined triggering event.

 

 

During the term of the Annuity trust the trustee (for example, a bank trust department or the Mississippi Baptist Foundation) invests the trust’s assets. Each year, the trustee distributes a fixed dollar amount to the income beneficiaries of the trust. The payments must be at least 5% of the trust’s initial value and are made out of trust income, or trust principal if income is not adequate. Payments continue until the trust term ends or until the highly unlikely event that the trust distributes all its assets. When the trust ends the amount remaining in the trust is paid to the Baptist cause or causes you specified. A charitable remainder annuity trust can be for the life of one or more beneficiaries, a fixed term of not more than 20 years, or a combination of the two.

 

 

The Charitable Lead Trust allows you to establish a trust with the income paid to the Baptist cause you specify with the remainder paid back to you or to members of your family after a period of years.