Current Topics

Tax-Free Gifts from IRAs Provision Renewed

The American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, passed by Congress on January 1, 2013 and signed into law by President Obama on January 2, 2013, renewed taxpayers’ ability to make tax-free gifts of their IRA assets to charity in 2013 and also made this ability retroactive to January 1, 2012.  H.R.8 was the final version of the legislation that partially avoided the “fiscal cliff” for now and contains other provisions that may impact charitable giving.
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Estate Planning and Planned Giving for Married Same-Sex Couples

U.S. v. Windsor changes the estate planning and charitable giving landscape for married same-sex couples. The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in this case makes available to same-sex married couples the same federal gift and estate tax and charitable giving benefits formerly available only to opposite-sex married couples. In this article, Dan Ebner '04 and his partner, Ray Prather, analyze U.S. v. Windsor and its important implications for estate planning and planned giving.
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Harvard Management Company Announces Fiscal 2012 Results

Harvard Management Company (HMC) manages charitable remainder trusts for the Law School and the University and also manages assets that are contributed for charitable gift annuities. It announced in the fall of 2012 the return on the Harvard endowment for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012 was essentially flat. The endowment earned an investment return of -0.05. The fiscal year 2012 endowment return was 98 basis points in excess of the -1.03% return on the benchmark Policy Portfolio. This is the third consecutive year that HMC has beaten the Policy Portfolio. Read More

Low Interest Rates

Low interest rates create opportunities for charitable gift annuities and charitable lead trusts.  Read More

HLS Library Launches Massive Database on Famed American Jurist.

The Holmes Digital Suite went live at Harvard Law School and on the web on Tuesday, December 11, 2012.  In a first for the Law School’s library, the site aggregates multiple archival holdings into a single location that anyone with a computer can access.  In the new suite, you can search and browse across five manuscript and three visual collections. Holmes used to say that a person’s education begins 200 years before his or her birth — that is, your heritage is part of who you are. This library brings together much of what Holmes is and was and makes him accessible to everyone around the world. Holmes is also the inspiration of the Oliver Wendell Holmes Society, which is for those that have included Harvard Law School in their estate plans and made some form of planned gift to the Law School.
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