A Legacy of Faith

Do you have life insurance? If you do you purchased it for some reason at some point in the past. If you have life insurance, it is the best way to leverage a monthly premium or an annual premium into enough money that their family could be cared for in their absence...

A Will expresses how you want to distribute your estate at the time of your death. But you also need a plan for care of your physical or financial needs if you become disabled prior to death. A Financial Power of Attorney will say who will manage your property in case you become mentally or physically disabled prior to death. And a Healthcare Power of Attorney will grant authority to a trusted individual to make health care decisions if you have been declared physically or mentally incompetent by your physicians.

So, they're farmers. They had a lot of land in a productive region of the country. They love several Christian ministries. And they would love to benefit them with more than their cash flow allowed them to do. Here's what they learned about. It's called a Charitable Life Estate...

Do you have a Will or a Revokable Living Trust, or both, and powers of attorney documents in place? If you don't then let me encourage you that these are all important aspects of the stewardship of any adult Christian. Every adult Christian needs to have a plan to pass the assets God has entrusted to him or her to the next steward of those assets...

So, I have a friend who has invested in real estate. We were talking one day and I said to him, "If it ever comes about that someone offers to buy a piece of your real estate, and you have to pay a capital gains tax on the profit, I just want you to remember that capital gains taxes are optional. You can pay them, postpone them, or totally avoid them."...

I've been working with a family who has some appreciated assets. Appreciated assets are simply this. You invested this much, in the asset and the value of the asset has grown to be this much. If you were to sell it, the taxes you would have to pay are called capital gains tax on the profit. It's unrealized profit until you sell it, but once you do it's called a capital gain and you have to pay a capital gains tax...

I was once privileged to work with a couple out in California who had spent decades in ministry. In preparation for their own retirement, they had actually purchased a duplex and they'd lived in half of it and rented the other half of it. As time went on and they moved into different homes throughout their ministry, they retained the one half of a duplex as a rental property. Then came the day when they decided they didn't want to fix broken toilets any more...

I work sometimes with business owners who want to sell businesses, but they realize if they do they're going to have to pay a capital gains tax. Doesn't have to be a business for that to come into play. It could be a farm, a rental property. It could be any appreciated assets, securities, or many other types of things...

If I say the letters I R A, what comes to mind? For many, it will be the Individual Retirement Account. The IRA was established by Congress to encourage citizens to save for future years in a way that would be tax-free savings, tax-deferred growth, and then fully taxable as ordinary income when withdrawn. But...

I've been helping people make decisions of generosity for over thirty years. What I've learned over those years by helping thousands of families is that the greatest opportunity most of us will have to be generous with others and with the ministries and churches we care about is with our estate plan...

When I started in the business of helping Christians plan their estates more than thirty years ago, a friend of mine said to me, "David, it shouldn't just be a last will and testament, it should be a last will and testimony." And then he told me about the importance of putting a Christian testimony in your will...