Planned Giving
Securities
St. Andrew's Church
An Anglican Church • Grimsby, Ontario, Canada
Planned Giving
Gifts of Securities
Securities include stocks, bonds, bills, warrants, and futures traded on approved stock exchanges in Canada and certain other countries. They also include mutual funds.
Giving securities to the church has become a very popular way of making a gift in the last few years. This is largely because of changes to the Canadian Income Tax Act that have created large tax incentives to donors who give securities to their favourite charities.
These tax changes reduce the amount of tax charged on the taxable gain from 50% to 25% of the taxable gain.
You may be one of many donors who have highly appreciated stocks and mutual funds in your portfolio. In the past, many hesitated to give such assets to the church because of the tax payable on the capital gain. Now that the taxable gain on these assets is only half what it was before, there is a strong incentive to give.
Or, you may own securities that you don't expect to perform as well as they have in the past and you may be thinking of selling them. You may be well advised, if you were planning a gift of cash to the church, to keep the cash and give the securities rather than sell the securities and give the cash proceeds.
Benefits to the Donor of Giving Securities
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You will get a charitable receipt for the fair market value of your securities. In the case of stocks and bonds, fair market value is the closing price on the date of the gift. For mutual funds it is the "bid price" on the date of the gift.
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If you had sold the securities you would pay tax on 50% of the capital gain.
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Securities gifts often allow a donor to make a much more substantial gift to the Church than they might otherwise have been able and have the satisfaction of seeing their gift make a significant impact on the life of the church.
And Now for a little twist….
Some donors resist giving large gifts of securities because it removes a significant asset from the estate that will then no longer be available to leave to their heirs. Did you know that some donors have creatively used the tax savings from this kind of gift to buy a life insurance policy on themselves as wealth replacement insurance?
The death benefit payout to the estate replaces the charitable gift of securities and the overall value of the assets of an estate remains unchanged. The donor receives the satisfaction of making a significant gift, the church receives that significant gift, and the heirs of the estate are protected financially.
In fact, the value of the estate for the heirs is larger, because there is no capital gains tax for the estate to pay on the life insurance death benefit when there would have been on the securities had they not been gifted!
How to Make a Gift of Securities to the Anglican Church
The Diocese of Niagara has an account with the Hamilton office of CIBC Wood Gundy to receive gifts of securities on behalf of parishes, the ACM Foundation, or the diocese.
Michael Hendershot
It is our policy and also the policy of the Anglican Church Ministries (ACM) Foundation, unless otherwise instructed in unusual circumstances, to immediately sell any gifts of securities and invest the cash proceeds as directed by the donor.
For more information contact
your Parish Planned Giving Representative
Please put the words, "Planned Giving" in the subject line of your e-mail.
OR The Reverend Dave Ponting by phone at (905) 527-1316, Extension 360 or dponting@niagara.anglican.ca
