Left. Right. Center. Red. White. Blue. No matter what your political affiliation, no one could deny that the election season is upon us once again. And one for President at that.
Are you a political diehard that vehemently supports your political party? If you are the kind of person that makes campaign contributions every year you may have considered how to continue making such contributions after your death. Which is of course a very possible thing to do in the same way that you can leave money to a charity if you wish. However, there are some issues with leaving money to a political party vs. a charity that you should be aware of.
First of all, there is a federal limit of $30,000 that can be contributed on a yearly basis. There is currently a case where a man left over $217,000 to his party of choice when he died in 2007. However, that money has not been distributed because the case is being held up by the Federal Election Commission. At issue is whether this bequest should be determined to be a contribution which is subject to the $13,000 federal limitation per year or whether the party can receive the entire amount in one lump sum.
This entire situation may have been avoided had the decedent simply wrote into his trust to distribute whatever the current limit amount should be at the time on a yearly basis. This way his party would have at least received the maximum amount of money each year. Whereas now they have not received any of the intended distributions for the last 5 years.
For more information on creating trusts please consult with a professional estate litigation Attorney.
*This blog entry was not written by an Attorney and should not be constituted as professional legal advice.