The Blitz Newsletter - January 2021

January 2021

Information on Tax and Estate Planning from the Masonic Charities of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania Due to the COVID-19 crisis, all travel and events are suspended until further notice.

The Masonic Charities Planned Giving Website A New Way to Connect with Us In the last edition, I mentioned the advent of the new Office of Gift Planning website. Well, it’s finally here, and it is a great way to learn about what our office can do to help you achieve your financial and charitable goals. The website address is www.masoniccharitieslegacy.org. I encourage you to take a tour of the site. Here are just a few of the highlights you will find: 1. Wills Planner - This page includes an excellent estate planning form to assist you in preparing all your estate planning documents, including your Will (and trust, if needed), Financial Power of Attorney, Medical Power of Attorney and Living Will (also called an Advanced Directive). You can also find an attorney in our online attorney network to help prepare your plan, and you can contact a gift planning professional to assist you in the planning process. For those seeking to get started with an estate plan or to update their current plan, this is a valuable resource.

2. Bequest Information - For those looking for insight and ideas on the different ways to include a Masonic Charity in his or her estate plan, visit the “About Bequests” page. You can also get specific bequest language for each Masonic charity by clicking the "Our Charities" tab and then selecting the charity of your choice.

PLANNED GIVING Giving Home

Wills Planner

Recognition Societies

Free Estate Planning Guide

Bequests

News

E-Newsletter

RETURN TO MAIN SITE

Advisors

Contact Us

SUPPORT THE MASONIC CHARITIES OF PENNSYLVANIA IN A MEANINGFUL WAY Keep us thriving with your gift and leave a legacy to be remembered by future generations.

Enhance Your Financial Resources.

3. Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD) or Talk To A Gift Planning Professional Today.

IRA Charitable Rollover - This page provides information on the benefits and mechanics of the QCD for those age 70½ or older who have a ABOUT BEQUESTS CHARITABLE ROLLOVER (QCD) traditional IRA. Learn how aIRA QCD may be the right way to give and save taxes.

You may be looking for a way to make a significant gift to help further our mission. a bequest is a gift made through your will or trust. It is one of the most popular and flexibile ways that you can support our cause.

An IRA charitable rollover (Qualified Charitable Distribution) allows people age 70 ½ and older to reduce their taxable income by making a gift directly from their IRA.

4. Gift Options - For those looking at the alternative ways of making a gift,DONOR the STORIES Gift Options GIFT OPTIONS page provides information on ways of giving, such as through bequests, QCDs, charitable trusts, charitable annuities and designation form gifts with IRAs, annuities, life insurance and the like.

Find out What to Give and learn about the best assets to make a planned gift. Learn about gifts of cash, securities and property.

Learn How to Give and discover gift options that provide tax and income benefits. Discover the best planned gift to meet your goals.

Masonic Charities One Masonic Drive Elizabethtown, PA 17022 Office of Gift Planning 1-800-599-6454 Giving@MasonicCharitiesPa.org

Learn how others have made an impact through their acts of giving to our organization and others. Explore the many benefits of charitable gift planning.

© Copyright 2020 Crescendo Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

PRIVACY STATEMENT This site is informational and educational in nature. It is not offering professional tax, legal, or accounting advice. For specific advice about the effect of any planning concept on your tax or financial situation or with your estate, please consult a qualified professional advisor.

Certain Design/Style Elements: © Copyright Familiar

The Masonic Charities are a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

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5. Recognition Society - For those who have included one of the Masonic Charities in their estate plan, there is a page about the benefits of joining our Franklin Legacy Society.

6. Contact Us - If you are looking for the professional assistance of a Gift Planner from our office to help you with your plan or to obtain information on a particular topic, this page is a great resource.

Attorney Network and Wills Planning For many of us, preparing our Will is the last item on our “bucket list.” Let’s face it, how many of us brag about a new Will? A new boat, maybe. A new house, sure. A new Tesla? Absolutely! But a Will?

Never. Yet, one of the most important projects you should consider attending to is making sure your Will is done AND is up-to-date. Nobody can fix it for you after you’re gone, unlike a new boat, house or even a Tesla.

Now, you have no excuse for not getting it done!

Why? Because with our new Wills Planner and Attorney Network, we can help you get it done and done right. I don’t care if you don’t plan to give to charity, but as an estate planning attorney, I do care about families and loved ones who have to pick up the mess of having to settle an estate where a Will is unavailable or outdated. The only real winner in this scenario is the attorney who who gets to settle the estate. Let me give you an example.

I used to visit Brother John several times a year. He would often brag about his business flipping homes in the Naples, Florida, area and had amassed a sizable estate. He was 60 years of age and recently married his girlfriend of two years, Kim. He had a home in the Poconos, where he spent the majority of the year fly fishing and hunting. One day, while hunting deer, John fell over and died from a massive heart attack. He never prepared a Will. Since he had property in Florida and in Pennsylvania, his estate had to be administered in both states. Even worse, the intestate laws for inheritance were different in each state. In Florida, all the homes he owned for flipping were to go to the surviving spouse.

However, he was a PA resident, and in PA, since he died married without children, half the estate went to Kim and the other half was split between Kim and his surviving father, George. Needless to say, George did not care for his deceased son’s new wife with three kids from previous marriages getting 75% of the estate, and Kim wasn’t happy that her father-in-law got anything. Three years later, after much litigation and over $100,000 in attorney fees, the battle for John’s estate continues.

The moral of the story is, get your Will done while you can by going to our Wills Planner and Attorney List website or by calling our office at 1-800-599-6454 to get a hard copy of the planner sent to you. You don’t have to be rich like John to fall into the same trap, and you owe it to your family and loved ones to have your Will in place.

I Want My QCD! For anyone 70½ or older with a traditional IRA, 2021 is the time to plan for the next IRA Charitable Rollover, otherwise known as a QCD, which is short for qualified charitable distribution.

The most common technique for using a QCD is by giving your Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) from your IRA to charity. Why? You need to take your RMD into income each year, and if you don’t need the money ,then you pay taxes on this income. But, if you give the RMD to charity as a QCD, the RMD is not taxed, and you reduce your income and pay less taxes. You can also potentially avoid a higher tax bracket and possibly limit the amount of taxes you pay on Social Security Income. Of course, you lose the money and you do not get an income tax deduction for your charitable gift, but you get the satisfaction of supporting your favorite charity and reducing your taxes.

In 2020, RMDs were suspended, but in 2021, they are back. So, start early to plan for your next QCD. Over the past four years, the number of QCDs received by Masonic Charities rose from 36 to 291, with total gift dollars for the same period increasing from $586,015.45 to $1,342,163.03.

So, if you see something on a Masonic Charity “Wish List” you would like to underwrite, I suggest that you use a QCD. The only caveat is that the cumulative limit for QCDs in any year is $100,000.

For those who don't itemize their taxes, the QCD is the best way to make a gift, since the QCD has the benefit of avoiding taxes and reducing your taxable income, while a cash gift for a person who does not itemize doesn’t result in a charitable deduction from your income.

So, remember, if you are 70½ or older with a traditional IRA, you should be saying, “I want my QCD!” If you have never done a QCD, visit our new planned giving website at www. masoniccharitieslegacy.org for more information, or call our office at 1-800-599-6454 and ask for our QCD Kit. You won’t be disappointed.

Neither Masonic Villages of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania nor Alvin H. Blitz, Esq. provide legal, financial, or tax advice.

None of the information in The Blitz should be deemed legal, financial, or tax advice or acted upon by any person without prior consultation with appropriate professional advisors.

1-800-599-6454 | MasonicCharitiesPa.org

Masonic Charities One Masonic Drive Elizabethtown, PA 17022

January 2021

As Chief Gift Planning Officer for the Masonic Villages in Pennsylvania, Alvin H. Blitz, Esq., serves the Masonic Charities of the R.W. Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, which consists of the Masonic Villages, the Masonic Children's Home, the Pennsylvania Masonic Youth Foundation, the Masonic Library and Museum of Pennsylvania and the Masonic Charities Fund. Attorney Blitz holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Scranton, a Master of Arts degree from Fairleigh Dickinson University, and a Juris Doctorate from Dickinson School of Law. He has given estate planning seminars throughout the country and is a member of Carlisle Lodge No. 260, Carlisle, Pa. Contact Alvin Blitz: 1-800-599-6454 or ABlitz@masonicvillages.org