Estate Gifts

Estate gifts are made when someone passes away and wishes to leave a legacy of philanthropy in their name or a loved one’s name. If you list TFS in any of your estate documents, please let us know so we can update our records and thank you for your generosity. Below are two ways you may choose to leave an estate gift. 

You may list TFS or another non-profit as a partial beneficiary in your will. Some people declare a fixed dollar amount, while others declare a fixed percentage. It’s quite common to have both non-profit beneficiaries and loved ones listed as beneficiaries in a will. Keep in mind, wills are typically used in probate court. If you wish to leave your 401(k) to both loved ones and to an organization such as TFS, if you have different beneficiaries listed with your 401(k) provider than you do in your will, it’s possible the 401(k) beneficiaries will overrule your will. That’s because beneficiary designations typically bypass probate court, which is the court system in each state that generally enforces documents such as wills. If probate is bypassed, so too may the wishes in your will. 

 

Revocable living trusts are common estate planning tools meant to avoid probate court and to control how assets are treated after a person passes away. Probate court can involve privacy issues, court costs, and months of time for processing and administration. For this reason, many people use trusts to avoid probate. As for controlling assets after a person passes away, you may wish to limit how much of your estate is given to your children until they reach a certain age, such as 25, 30, or 35. A revocable living trust gives you the ability to have this control over time. 

 

As with wills, you can designate partial beneficiaries in your trust that may include both loved ones and non-profit beneficiaries. It’s common to list non-profits as either fixed dollar amount beneficiaries or fixed percentage beneficiaries.