00:00:00
Francisco Sirvent: Hello, hello everybody. Welcome, welcome. We’ll get started here in just a minute. I know we have a few more people who wanted to join. Just hang tight; we’ll get started shortly. Well, it’s officially afternoon. So, good afternoon everybody. Welcome to today’s webinar on charitable strategies that your CPA probably won’t tell you.
I think I’ve met most of you. Welcome. Good to see you here. For those I haven’t met before, my name is Francisco Sirvent. I’m the founder of Keystone Law Firm and Lifestyle Planning. We do these webinars as often as we can just to share ideas, strategies, and things that we hope are practical for you to take home and use—or even if you already knew about them, you can feel more certain about what you’re doing. Check our website for upcoming webinars at keystonelawfirm.com/events, and you can register for any of them right there.
Housekeeping and Q&A Information
00:23:28
Francisco Sirvent: The ones posted there are free to attend. Our online system doesn’t have a limit to the number of people who can attend, so you’re welcome to join anytime and share the link with anybody you know. I will give you a couple of housekeeping tips. We record these and share them on our YouTube channel afterward. If you see a topic you want to hear but can’t attend the live date, look back at our YouTube channel; it takes us about a week to get it posted. That is youtube.com/keystonelawfirm, and you’ll find the full 45 to 60-minute sessions there.
The benefit of attending live is that we try to save time for Q&A. However, because we are recording and posting these for the public, if you have questions, make sure they are generic or hypothetical enough so you don’t reveal anything about yourself that you don’t want posted on YouTube.
00:24:47
Francisco Sirvent: I can take questions by chat throughout the presentation. I’ll try to watch for those and provide answers as we go, but I’ll definitely have time at the end for live Q&A. Also, I want to plug our very next one: it is on February 11th at 9:00 a.m. My partner, Michelle Dexter, will be presenting “How to Talk to Your Kids About Your Estate Plan.” If you aren’t quite sure what to share with them but feel like you should share something, that would be a great one to attend.
So, here we are, a few weeks into the new year, already talking tax strategies. The main reason we talk tax strategies now is that you want to know what they are before the year is over.
The Difference Between a CPA and a Tax Attorney
00:26:01
Francisco Sirvent: Before we dive into the content: this is general information of an educational nature. This is not legal, tax, or financial advice for you or your specific situation. Full disclosures are available at retirementmo.com.
With that out of the way, it was quite a few years after becoming an attorney before I really learned the professional difference between a CPA and a tax lawyer. Please do not take this as me saying anything negative about CPAs—a good CPA is amazing and phenomenally helpful. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has clarified the difference. Their license is as a Public Accountant, and that word “public” has a very significant meaning. This is why CPAs aren’t regularly trained to do proactive, strategic tax reduction planning. Their duties are to the public to report things accurately according to the tax rules.
00:27:27
Francisco Sirvent: Their allegiance is to the public. Whereas a tax attorney only has one person they answer to: their client. An attorney’s duty is to the client—to present their case or information as favorably as possible. A good tax attorney will help you think strategically about the tax code.
I love sharing tax strategies and saving tax dollars. My wife and I use as many as we can. I am never interested in strategies that are going to result in trouble with the IRS. I want to be above board on everything. The strategies we’re going to talk about today are very “vanilla,” time-tested, and right in the rules. There’s not a lot of complication to implementing these.
00:28:33
Francisco Sirvent: I really hope you can walk away with one or two nuggets that save you a few thousand dollars, $10,000, or even $50,000 in taxes. For every tax dollar you put back in your pocket, that’s tax-free money. Today’s strategies are all focused on charity.
A lot of people use charities just to get deductions. I’m the type of strategist who says: if you are already charitable, make sure you are getting the most tax benefit from your giving. If you aren’t already giving to a church, the Red Cross, or leaving something in your estate plan to charity, there may not be much here for you. But if you are, these ideas will “supercharge” those gifts so you get the maximum benefit, not the minimum.
Strategy #1: Bunching and Donor-Advised Funds
00:29:51
Francisco Sirvent: I have four strategies to discuss. The first one I call “The Destructive Standard Deduction.” In 2017, the tax law was changed to raise the individual standard deduction significantly, and it’s now indexed for inflation. For some, this simplifies the tax return—you don’t have many itemized deductions, so you just take the standard amount. For others, it’s a constant game of “Which one am I going to take each year?”
00:31:03
Francisco Sirvent: To recap, married couples filing jointly get a large standard deduction whether they have expenses or not. In the “old days,” you kept track of mortgage interest, charitable gifts, state and local taxes, and medical expenses. You’d report those itemized deductions to reduce your income.
Now, if you are a single person, you get $16,100 regardless. If your itemized deductions only add up to $8,000, you aren’t going to itemize; you’ll take the full $16,100.
00:32:11
Francisco Sirvent: There is no extra tax benefit to spending money on these things if you don’t exceed that standard deduction. This higher deduction has actually decreased the tax incentive for charitable giving for many people. That is where our first strategy comes in.
00:33:41
Francisco Sirvent: Let’s look at this over a couple of years. For easy math, I’ll use $30,000 as the standard deduction (though it is $32,000 for 2026 for married couples).
Imagine a couple gives $15,000 to charity and has $12,000 in other deductions, totaling $27,000. Since the standard deduction ($30,000) is bigger, they take that. If they do the same thing in 2027, their total deductions over two years would be $60,000.
00:34:57
Francisco Sirvent: The strategy I suggest is called Bunching. This means getting as many of those deductions as possible into one year instead of spreading them out.
In this example, they still give $30,000 total to charity over two years. But if they “bunch” the gifts into 2026, their itemized deductions would be $42,000 ($30k charity + $12k other). They take the $42,000 in year one and still get the $30,000 standard deduction in year two. That is an extra $12,000 in deductions over those two years without spending an extra dime.
00:36:17
Francisco Sirvent: You can do this with medical expenses or state and local taxes, too. Now, some people say, “I don’t want to give my gifts all at once; the charity is used to getting them annually.”
There is a tool I love called a Donor-Advised Fund (DAF). It’s basically your own personal charity account. You don’t need complex legal documents; you just go to an investment company (like Schwab or Fidelity) and open a DAF account. It’s as simple as opening a brokerage account or an IRA.
00:39:02
Francisco Sirvent: You bunch two years’ worth of gifts into the first year and put the full amount into the DAF. You get the full tax deduction the year the money goes into the fund. The money sits there, and you can then log in and tell the fund to send $15,000 to your charity this year and $15,000 next year.
You can even leave it there to grow or let your beneficiaries distribute it later. It can never come back to you, and you don’t get a second deduction when the money leaves the DAF to the charity.
00:40:58
Francisco Sirvent: In our example, if that couple was in the 24% tax bracket, bunching put almost $3,000 back in their pocket. It’s a very simple way to gain leverage.
Strategy #2: Donating Appreciated Stock
00:41:58
Francisco Sirvent: Strategy number two: Cash is king, except with donations. Most people donate out of their checking account. But there is a big difference if you have stocks, mutual funds, or shares of publicly traded companies.
If a couple in the 37% tax bracket gives $20,000 in cash, they save $7,400 in taxes. The “net cost” of that gift is $12,600.
00:43:28
Francisco Sirvent: But what if they used appreciated stock? Paige asked if you can put stocks into a DAF—absolutely.
If you have stock you bought for $5,000 that is now worth $20,000, you have a $15,000 capital gain. If you sell it, you pay taxes. But if you gift that stock directly to the charity (or a DAF), you get the full $20,000 income tax deduction, and you never have to pay the capital gains tax. The charity liquidates it tax-free.
00:44:36
Francisco Sirvent: This can save you an additional 20% to 23.8% in taxes. Comparing cash to stock, you could put over $3,500 more back in your pocket just by changing the medium of the gift.
Here is a fun “pro tip”: if you love the stock and don’t want to part with it, gift the old shares with the low cost basis to charity, then take the cash you would have donated and buy new shares of the same stock. You’ve now “stepped up” your basis to the current price, resetting your future tax liability.
Strategy #3: Charitable Remainder Trusts (CRT)
00:47:12
Francisco Sirvent: Strategy three involves more planning but offers incredible leverage. It’s for people who feel “trapped” in a highly appreciated asset, like a rental property or a private business, because they don’t want to pay the massive capital gains tax to diversify.
00:48:22
Francisco Sirvent: Imagine a couple owns a rental property worth $1M that they bought for $200k. If they sell it, they face an $800k gain and a roughly $200k tax bill, leaving them with only $800k to reinvest.
00:49:25
Francisco Sirvent: A Charitable Remainder Trust (CRT) can solve this. You transfer ownership of the asset to the CRT. You get a partial tax deduction immediately (usually around 10% of the value). Then, the CRT sells the asset. Because it’s a charitable trust, it pays zero capital gains tax. It keeps the full $1M to invest.
00:51:48
Francisco Sirvent: The trust then pays you a stream of income for the rest of your life (or a set number of years).
Comparing the two: if you sold the property and invested $800k at 5%, your net take-home might be $32k/year. With the CRT, you’re investing the full $1M, which results in about $8k more income per year after tax. Plus, you get that $100,000 deduction in year one to chip away at your other tax bills.
00:55:37
Francisco Sirvent: The “catch” is that when you pass away, the remaining balance goes to the charity you chose, not your heirs. If you already plan on leaving a legacy to charity, this is a way to get the tax benefits during your life while still fulfilling that goal.
Strategy #4: The IRMAA Cliff and QCDs
00:56:46
Francisco Sirvent: The last strategy involves the “IRMAA Cliff.” IRMAA is the Medicare premium penalty. If you are 65 or older, you face this “cliff” because if you are even $1 over the income threshold, you get hit with a surcharge.
For 2026, the threshold for a couple is $218,000. If Bill and Barb have $225,000 in income, they are over by $7,000. That $7,000 “extra” income might result in $2,300 in Medicare penalties. Between federal tax, state tax, and the penalty, they barely keep any of that extra money.
00:59:17
Francisco Sirvent: You have to plan for this in the middle of the year because you can’t fix it once the year is over. The solution is a Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD).
If you are taking Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) from your IRA, you can have the custodian send money directly to a charity. This is a QCD.
01:00:35
Francisco Sirvent: Because the money goes directly to the charity and never hits your bank account, it doesn’t count toward your Gross Income. If Bill and Barb send $10,000 of their RMD to a charity via a QCD, their income drops below the IRMAA limit. They avoid the $2,300 penalty and save on their income tax bill. It’s a huge win-win.
Closing and Live Q&A
01:03:09
Francisco Sirvent: This is the kind of stuff we help our members at the Retirement Management Office (RMO) coordinate. We help crunch the numbers and execute these strategies year-by-year.
If you aren’t an RMO member and want more information, I offer a free 15-minute phone call. There’s no pressure or catch. We just talk about whether you’re getting this kind of proactive planning from your current team. I’ll drop the link to my calendar in the chat.
01:04:14
Francisco Sirvent: Take these strategies to your CPA this tax season. Ask them about these four things. Most of these can’t be applied to last year, but there is plenty of time to implement them for 2026.
I’ll open it up for questions now. Diane, I see your hand up.
Diane: You were talking about publicly traded stocks. Can you use ETFs or mutual funds?
Francisco Sirvent: Yes, for almost all of these, you can use mutual funds and ETFs. Thanks for coming! Any other questions? Michael Clark?
Michael Clark: On a charitable trust, can I make my own charity and make myself the trustee?
Francisco Sirvent: For a Charitable Remainder Trust (CRT), yes, you are the grantor and can be the trustee. If you’re asking about making it “generational,” a CRT typically has a fixed end date. There are other types of charitable entities for multi-generational legacies.
Michael Clark: Is there a way of putting my LLC into a charitable trust?
Francisco Sirvent: You can, but it’s harder than publicly traded stocks. It requires a private appraisal that stands up to IRS scrutiny.
Paige: Does a donor-advised fund go away like the CRT, or can it be a family legacy?
Francisco Sirvent: It can definitely be a family legacy. You can designate a successor to control the fund after you pass. And yes, anyone in the family can contribute to the same fund and get their own tax benefits.
01:09:47
Francisco Sirvent: All right guys, thank you for coming! Remember Michelle’s webinar on February 11th about talking to kids about your estate plan. The recording of this will be on YouTube in about a week. Have a great day!
