American Council on Gift Annuities

ACGA requests that the House’s tax reform bill:

1. Make permanent the IRA/charitable rollover for direct transfers to public charities (expiring this year).
2. Expand the IRA/charitable rollover to allow a rollover for charitable life-income plans for donors.
3. Provide an option for donors to make charitable contributions by April 15 and elect to deduct them on the prior year’s income tax return (due by April 15 in the year that the election is made).
4. For all new charitable remainder unitrusts and annuity trusts, decrease the minimum annual payment to three percent.

Click here to read the full statement.

On Thursday, February 14, 2013, Conrad Teitell, volunteer legal council for the ACGA, spoke to the Committee on Ways and Means regarding tax reform and charitable contributions including the ACGA's proposed All-American Charitable IRA Rollover Act.  Mr. Teitell addressed four points including asking Congress to: (1) make permanent the provision that allows direct tax-free distributions from IRAs to charity (the so-called IRA/charitable rollover); (2) expand the IRA rollover to include transfers to fund a charitable life-income plan for the donor; (3) eliminate the charitable deduction as one of the deductions subject to the reinstated overall limitation on itemized deductions (the Pease provision); and (4) not place a cap or floor on the charitable deduction - or impose a lower tax rate at which contributions may be deducted.  Mr. Teitell summed up by reporting that decreased support from federal, state and local governments and increased burdens on charities make this the time to enact legislation that increases - not decreases - the incentive to make charitable gifts. Charities need the funds now to do their vital work.  To read Mr. Teitell's entire statement to the the committee, click here.

Note: The following Charitable Gift Annuities Exemption Model Act was approved by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) at its Winter Meeting on 12-07-98 in Orlando, Florida. In early 1999, it was forwarded to the Insurance Commissioners of all 50 states (and the District of Columbia) with its Meeting Minutes, for forwarding to the state legislatures, suggesting that each state legislature choose either it or the Charitable Gift Annuities Model Act and make it a part of the Insurance Law of that state.

APPENDIX A
Draft: 3/17/98
Adopted by the Life Insurance (A) Committee.

Note: The Philanthropy Protection Act of 1995 prohibits the payment of commissions or remuneration to anyone based on the value of a charitable gift annuity given to a public charity, and also requires the charity to provide a Disclosure Statement to the donor prior to the receipt of the donor's first annuity gift given to that charity. See text of the Law below and the Statement by the National Committee on Planned Giving (NCPG) and the American Council on Gift Annuities (ACGA) on the payment of commissions by a charity in return for a gift annuity - found at http://www.ncpg.org/.

FULL TEXT OF H.R.2519 - 104th U.S. Congress