You used to have to wait for a loved one to die before you found out how much you were going to inherit ”” if you were going to inherit at all.
No more. Now, if you’re among the lucky minority of Americans who have received an inheritance or expect one, you’re increasingly likely to get at least some of it while your relatives are still alive.
“Giving while living” is becoming popular as more Americans decide to spread their money around while they’re still here to see its impact. They’re giving to children, grandchildren and others. They’re paying for college educations and providing down payments for houses. They’re setting up trusts and paying for vacations.
To keep families working together and to support favorite causes, more Americans are setting up private foundations and hiring their children to run them or serve on the boards. The number of independent foundations has jumped 77% in the past 10 years to 63,059, according to the Foundation Center in New York. Nine out of 10 of them are family foundations.
But the best part is that it gets the money into the hands of the children without the 60% ‘death tax’ cut. 🙂