Akron Charitable Planning Attorney

Giving money to a charity one time is quite easy. You simply write a check and feel good about your kindness. But creating a charitable plan for periodic giving or estate planning is a lot more complicated. And mistakes can cost you money or cost the charity money.

The best way to avoid these mistakes is to retain the services of a lawyer for charitable planning. Slater & Zurz will help you create a charitable plan that allows you to be generous with your assets.

Our attorneys can create legally enforceable agreements while also ensuring you get the tax benefits you deserve for your kindness. If you need a charitable planning attorney in Akron, Ohio, call us today at (330) 762-0700.

Types of Charitable Planning

Charitable planning usually involves giving money during your lifetime, after your lifetime, or both.

Generous people like you want to help the charities that mean the most to them and give back to their community. An attorney for charitable planning will help you understand your options and create trusts that will guarantee that the charities you support get the money you want to give.

We can help you set up both recurring donations and one-time charitable donations.

Recurring Donations

A recurring donation is set up similarly to the autopay option for your monthly bills. Money from a particular account will be donated to a charity of your choice on a set, recurring cycle. Any time frame can be arranged, depending on your preference. Many clients give monthly, biannually, or annually.

In addition to arranging for donations, our charitable planning attorneys will also help you deal with the tax impacts of your donations. Charitable giving can be reported on your tax returns and may reduce your tax liability at the end of the year.

Even if our attorneys don’t help you file your taxes, we will provide you with documentation that you or your accountant can use to claim tax deductions.

Donations in Your Estate

Not everyone is comfortable giving to charity while they still have living expenses to deal with. But even if you can’t give during your life, that doesn’t mean you can’t give to charity after you have passed. Our charitable planning lawyers in Akron, Ohio, can help you add charitable donations to your will.

By including a charitable donation in your will, you can give generously without risking your financial health during your life. One of our Akron charitable planning lawyers can write your will in a way to prevent it from being contested and ensure that the charity gets your money.

Including a charity directly in your will is more straightforward than giving the money to an heir and requesting that they donate in your name. It also makes tax considerations easier for all parties involved.

If you are looking for an attorney for charitable planning in the Akron, Ohio, area, call Slater & Zurz at (330) 762-0700 for more information.

Making Decisions About How to Help

At Slater & Zurz, we often meet generous clients who want to make a positive difference but don’t know the best way to do so. The first choice can be one of the hardest: Which charity or charities should you give your money to? Our attorneys for charitable planning can help you make that decision.

We are familiar with many local, national, and international charities and can give you information about them, such as:

• Who or what cause they benefit
• What percentage of donations go to the primary cause
• Whether they pass donations along to other charities
• How trustworthy is the charity considered
• How effective the charity has been in the past

Slater & Zurz attorneys can help you find the charity or charities that best fit your philanthropic desires. You want your money to go to a good cause and to be spent in the most effective way possible, and we can help you find the information you need to be certain that happens.

The next decision we can help you with is how to donate. Every charitable organization has different needs. And your donation will be more or less valuable, depending on whether it meets those needs.

For example, some organizations are most in need of regular (monthly or even weekly) donations because they have constant expenses as part of their mission. Conversely, other organizations are better off with occasional large donations that cover a specific project or activity.

Most charities will be happy to take any type of donation, but some types of donations (even if they are for smaller amounts) may be more helpful.

A charitable planning lawyer at Slater & Zurz will be able to inform you what type of giving would be most helpful for the charity in question. Then we can create trusts or accounts that provide what the charity most needs. This can even be done as part of your will.

Contingent Charitable Planning

It is wonderful to be generous, but not everyone can afford to be generous all the time. You need to protect your financial well-being before giving to others. Contingent charitable planning can protect your finances while also allowing you to be generous when your financial health allows for it.

A contingent charitable plan can be set up by an experienced Akron charitable planning lawyer. This plan will give money to a charity only when certain prerequisites are met. You can define those prerequisites in any way. Some of the most popular choices are:

• Only donating after all funeral and probate costs are met
• Only donating when an account has a certain threshold of money
• Only donating if your yearly income surpasses a certain threshold
• Changing the value of an annual donation after a certain number of years
• Changing the value of a donation after a potential heir reaches adulthood
• Tying a donation to whether a charity agrees to a certain stipulation

This type of charitable planning allows you to automatically account for changes in your financial status. If your finances suffer for one year, a contingent plan may immediately stop donations until they recover.

Similarly, if you enjoy a windfall, your contingent plan can be set up to automatically share some of that money with a charity either now or upon your death.

As a rule of thumb, nearly all charitable planning should include some contingencies, even if they are as simple as ensuring that your estate covers your funeral costs before giving any money to charity. A Slater & Zurz charitable planning lawyer in Akron will be able to arrange for any contingencies that you want.

Slater & Zurz Can Help

Charitable giving is an act of generosity, but that doesn’t mean that it is easy. There are complicated tax and estate considerations whenever you give away money.

Our experienced attorneys take the complicated bureaucracy and lay it out for you in the simplest terms possible. More often than not, we can do all of the complicated work, leaving you to simply make a few meaningful decisions and sign a little paperwork.

This work isn’t just our job; it is important to us personally. We have a tradition of giving back to our community at Slater & Zurz.

For example, our law firm provides annual scholarships for deserving high school seniors in Ohio, and our founder has made it his life’s mission to prevent children from suffering from dog bite attacks.

These are just a few of the ways that we engage in philanthropy. Helping generous donors like you at a reasonable cost is another. We take pride every time we help a client arrange a charitable plan.

If you can give back to your community or help charities in need, Slater & Zurz, charitable planning lawyers in Akron, want to help. Together, we can devise a plan to maximize the value of your donations. Call us today at (330) 762-0700 to schedule an initial appointment.

How to Find a Good Charitable Planning Attorney

A good charitable planning lawyer in Akron is just a phone call away. Our team of experienced Akron probate attorneys at Slater & Zurz has helped clients give millions of dollars to many deserving charities. If you want help with giving, call (330) 762-0700 to schedule an appointment with one of our Akron charitable planning lawyers.