Maybe you saw this article last week in the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/10/business/10GIVE.html?_r=2&ref=businessspecial3
For those in the planned giving field for sometime, you should know that NY Times and Wall Street Journal articles, in particular, seem to have far reaching impact. Probably more than deserved but always deserving our attention (so we can at least be ready if our donors have read them).
But, don’t you to let out a krecht (a Yiddish groan of frustration) when reading these articles?
And, this one actually didn’t butcher the facts – it was fully factually correct.
My krecht is over how useless and boring the piece was. It was like an editor told one of their writers to put together an article on planned giving with the theme that the new estate tax law might be good for charity. And, all they came up with was a review of basic planned giving vehicles (without enough room to explain anything).
OK – for all of my new readers (thank you for signing up) and old ones, too, I am going to try to write my own style NY Times/WSJ article by tomorrow. The title: New Estate Tax Law: Boom or Bust for Philanthropy?
And, I am not going to pussyfoot (a real word according to Merriam-Webster.com – to tread or move warily or stealthily) around the fact that less estate tax means less tax incentives for charitable estate planning (and possibly less charitable estate dollars).