Top 10 Planning Strategies for 2025

January means it’s time for clients to visit their goals and discuss planning ideas for the year ahead. We believe philanthropy plays an important role in that process. Not all clients are charitably minded, however, you’d be surprised how many are and welcome ideas from their advisors, in fact, they expect charitable strategies to be discussed to ensure their charitable giving goals and tax-planning goals are achieved. Our team at Gulf Coast is committed to being your partner in developing strategies that meet your client’s needs.  

Here are Gulf Coast’s top ten planning strategies for 2025.  

1. Gifting Highly Appreciated Stocks into a Donor-Advised Fund (DAF): Leverage the stock market highs by establishing a DAF with highly appreciated securities. This provides an immediate charitable tax deduction, avoids capital gains tax, and has the flexibility to grant funds over time, whether in a short period or across generations.

2. Utilizing a DAF for Bunching Contributions: If you’re unable to fully deduct your charitable gifts due to the higher standard deduction, consider “bunching” contributions into your DAF for multiple years. This allows you to itemize deductions now while utilizing your DAF to distribute grants later ensuring you never lose your charitable deduction again.      

3. Gifting Appreciated Non-Cash Assets: Donate appreciated real estate, business interests, or other assets to a DAF, Scholarship, Field of Interest or another fund that meets your needs at Gulf Coast. This strategy helps reduce capital gains tax while allowing you to claim a charitable deduction for the fair market value, enabling impactful giving for your favorite causes or setting up a family fund for generational granting.

4. Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs): For those aged 70½ or older, make direct donations from your IRA to qualified charitable funds, i.e. designated funds, scholarships, agency funds or one of Gulf Coast Initiative Funds. QCDs can satisfy the required minimum distributions (RMDs) while reducing your taxable income. For 2025, the limit is $108,000 per person—up to $216,000 for couples with IRAs.

5. Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs) to establish a Charitable Gift Annuity (CGA): With the Secure Act 2.0 now in effect, donors have the opportunity to transfer up to $54,000 in 2025 from their IRA to establish a Charitable Gift Annuity (CGA). This one-time transfer is an excellent strategy to avoid current income taxation while simultaneously supporting a charity of your choice once the annuity matures.

6. Turning Cryptocurrency Into Gifts: With the rise of digital assets, consider donating cryptocurrency directly to charities or a DAF to avoid capital gains taxes. Gulf Coast is positioned to accept over 70 different types of cryptocurrency gifts, allowing you to support your valued causes and charities. 

7. Charitable Reminder Trusts (CRT) for Liquidity Events: For those selling a business or other appreciated assets, such as real estate, collections or even a herd of cattle, a CRT allows you to donate part or all of the asset, sidestepping immediate capital gains tax and providing an income stream for life or a specified period not to exceed 20 years, with the remainder benefiting your chosen charity or fund at Gulf Coast. 

8. Charitable Gift Annuities (CGA): Establish a CGA for a reliable income stream for yourself or a loved one while supporting charity. This is a great strategy for those with maturing commercial annuities. By establishing a CGA you can take the charitable deduction to offset the capital gains and still receive income for life. The beauty of this strategy is that CGAs have no age limit for underwriting.

9. Testamentary Retirement Planning with Charitable Remainder Trusts (CRT): Name a CRT as the beneficiary of a retirement plan for the benefit of heirs. Since the Secure Act eliminated the stretch IRA, this strategy allows you to provide an income stream to one or more beneficiary’s (sometimes can be limited to 20 years), provide a charitable deduction to the estate if needed, and the remainder or balance of the trust will benefit charity after the last living beneficiary has passed. This is a win-win for those looking to provide for family and charity in the most efficient way.

10. Grantor Charitable Lead Trust for After the Fact Liquidity Events: If you are looking for a charitable deduction to offset a tax liability but aren’t thrilled about an outright gift, consider a Grantor CLT. This option will produce an immediate charitable deduction whereas you can choose all variables for the trust; payout rate, length of term and value contributed to the trust. At the end of the term the balance of the trust reverts back to you.

By utilizing these charitable planning opportunities, you can enhance philanthropic strategies for your clients in 2025. Gulf Coast is here to answer any questions or assist with illustrations related to these strategies. Together, let’s build a strong legacy of giving! 

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