Everyone is a philanthropist. You are an involuntary philanthropist if you – like most Americans – spend about 4 months per year working to accumulate money for income, capital gains, IRD, estate, gift, GST, property, sales, and other taxes. You are a voluntary philanthropist if you redirect tax money to trusts for your retirement, family, and favorite charities.

Zero tax planning can help a client control all of his or her balance sheet assets, including the portion currently allocated for taxes. It is not difficult to zero-out taxes simply by giving wealth to charity. Amazing opportunities arise, however, when the tax benefits of charitable tools are combined with the tax benefits of non-charitable instruments.

To achieve zero tax planning goals, advisers typically integrate well-known philanthropic strategies such as Revocable Bequests, Charitable Remainder Trusts, and Charitable Lead Trusts with common non-charitable techniques such as Limited Liability Corporations, Revocable Living Trusts, and a variety of irrevocable trusts. Advisers can help clients zero-out tax while using widely accepted planning instruments that respect the letter and spirit of the Internal Revenue Code. Such instruments may generate large tax deductions, allow for tax-deferred growth, shelter income from current taxes, and transfer wealth to heirs without estate, gift or generation-skipping taxes.

Congress and the IRS empower clients and advisers to design planning instruments to minimize taxes, integrate charitable and non-charitable planning tools synergistically, and draft and fund tools to allocate the correct amount of wealth for personal and community goals. The following sections review how clients can decide how much wealth will be consumed, transferred to beneficiaries, gifted to charities, or paid in taxes. Diagrams in materials linked under the following book image suggest how clients can minimize the amount in the tax bucket while maximizing income for lifestyle expenses, transfers to heirs and gifts to favorite charities. Please click below to download Chapters 1 and 9 of the following book.