Charitable Gift Types

Here’s the problem:
The ACGA, in an April 2021 communication, informed its members that the ACGA suggested maximum payout rates exceed the current maximum payout rates allowed by the State of New York at the typical ages of most gift annuitants. While there are a number of states that regulate gift annuities, New York is the only one that issues its own maximum allowable gift annuity payout rates for its residents. Until recently, the ACGA suggested maximum payout rates have been consistently lower than the New York maximum rates.

What we have determined:  
Our most recent analysis reveals that the ACGA rates exceed the maximum New York rates applicable to gift annuities funded in October – December 2021 for females at ages 45 through 88 and for males at ages 46 through 85. That’s pretty much the age group for new gift annuities! Please note, the NY maximum payout rates are published only for 1-life annuities, and they are gender-specific. The state does not currently publish maximum payout rates for 2-life gift annuities, or for any type of deferred gift annuities.

When doing calculations for a deferred gift annuity, two dates related to the timing of the first payment come into play, the date of first payment itself and the so-called “annuity starting date.” While the date of first payment is the far more familiar concept of the two, only the annuity starting date is a central component of calculations performed in PGM Anywhere. Gift planners will benefit from understanding the difference between these two dates on how they are used in PGM Anywhere’s calculations.

Here’s the problem:
The ACGA, in an April 2021 communication, informed its members that the ACGA suggested maximum payout rates exceed the current maximum payout rates allowed by the State of New York at the typical ages of most gift annuitants. While there are a number of states that regulate gift annuities, New York is the only one that issues its own maximum allowable gift annuity payout rates for its residents. Until recently, the ACGA suggested maximum payout rates have been consistently lower than the New York maximum rates.

What we have determined:  
Our recent analysis revealed that the ACGA rates exceed the maximum New York rates applicable to gift annuities funded in April – June 2021 for females at ages 46 through 91 and for males at ages 46 through 86. That’s pretty much the age group for new gift annuities! Please note, the NY maximum payout rates are published only for 1-life annuities, and they are gender-specific. The state does not currently publish maximum payout rates for 2-life gift annuities, or for any type of deferred gift annuities.

Planned giving departments need to demonstrate accountability for results in terms of gift revenue. Our challenge, of course, is that we generally don’t know how much planned gift revenue is coming or when it will come in, making it very difficult to accurately measure the results of current efforts. Let’s look at how using a combination of historical realized planned gifts and current calculations can generate a reasonable picture of the value of your planned gift pipeline.

PG Calc’s Planned Giving Manager and PGM Anywhere include a question that sometimes causes confusion for the gift planning professional. When running the calculations for a charitable remainder unitrust, the following question appears in the Gift Options section: “Whole Months from Annual Valuation Date to First Payment Date.” We have received a number of calls over the years about that question, and we thought this was a good chance to cover it.

The Record Death function in GiftWrap is designed to make adjustments to the payment and tax information for gift annuities. When an annuitant is deceased, the function can move future payment and tax information to a successor beneficiary, if any, or remove future payment and tax information for terminated gifts and change the gift status to Finished.

However, GiftWrap can make these adjustments automatically only for deaths in the current or immediately prior Organization Year. If the death occurs two or more years earlier than the current Organization Year, the Record Death function will mark the annuitant as deceased, but all adjustments to the payments and tax schedule must be done manually.

On April 26, 2018, at the American Council on Gift Annuities’ biannual conference, David Ely, chairman of the ACGA’s Rates Committee, announced an increase in its suggested maximum gift annuity rates. David explained that after reviewing the model portfolio the ACGA uses for determining the interest rate assumption used in setting rates – 40% equities, 55% bonds, 5% cash – the committee determined that this interest rate assumption should increase from 4.25% to 4.75%.

Annuity reserves are the assets a charity needs in order to finance its gift annuity payment obligations. The amount of reserves needed to finance each gift annuity depends on the size of the annuity payments, the ages of the annuitants, and the mortality table and interest rate used.

Many charities compute annuity reserves for their own internal purposes to make sure that they have ample funds on hand to make annuity payments now and in the future.

The charitable IRA rollover has received a lot of attention from gift planners over the last few years. Since it was made permanent by the PATH Act in late 2015, gift planners across the country have re-doubled their efforts to let their supporters know about this tax efficient way to give. Many are finding success, too. Over one-third of the respondents to a recent poll of PG Calc webinar attendees said their organization had received over 20 charitable IRA rollover gifts in the past year.

Under Republican leadership, Congress is working feverishly to complete the details of sprawling tax reform legislation, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and have it on President Trump’s desk for his signature by the end of this year. The House bill was voted on and approved on November 16.  On the same day, the Senate Finance Committee approved their version of the package.