Toeing the Line: Legal Pitfalls in Family Foundation Governance

Posted on December 11, 2014 by Andrew Schulz

Should we accept those tickets to the opening of the new local theater that just arrived in the mail? Can our family office charge our foundation for rent? Is it o.k. for us to pay Uncle Bob to manage the foundation’s investment portfolio? Can we make a grant to our family's donor advised fund to help make year-end payout requirements? … Read More

Are There Any Problems with a Foundation Setting Up a Donor-Advised Fund?

Posted on December 11, 2014 by Andrew Schulz

There are no problems with a foundation setting up a donor-advised fund. When the Pension Protection Act was drafted back in 2006, one of the things they considered explicitly was prohibiting distributions from donor-advised funds to private foundations, because of the way you can arbitrage the tax rules. They left that out, because they considered it to already be illegal… Read More

Are There Any Regulations on Gifts That Are Accepted by Family Members?

Posted on December 11, 2014 by Andrew Schulz

Are there any regulations on gifts that are accepted by family members? Should we not accept restricted gifts, for instance? You have to be careful about closely held business interests because of the restrictions on self- dealing and who you can sell them back to. There are no laws that explicitly prohibit certain gifts. Restrictions, if they’re for a particular… Read More

Should Family Members Write Two Checks for an Event, One for the Charitable Portion, and One for the Non-Deductible Portion?

Posted on December 11, 2014 by Andrew Schulz

Well, this one’s easy, but not for the reason that you think. You should stop that process all together. The IRS has ruled that you can’t split payments that way. If there’s a deductible portion and non-deductible, this process, known as “bifurcation” is not permissible. The IRS has said you can’t write the charitable portion out of the foundation and… Read More

What Happens if You Under-Estimate Excise Taxes?

Posted on December 11, 2014 by Andrew Schulz

In addition to paying the tax on investment income, which is either 2 percent or 1 percent, foundations have to pay quarterly estimated tax payments. Typically, they anticipate what those payments are. If you’ve underpaid it, you need to rectify it, and how you do so really depends on how much you’ve underpaid by. If you’re grossly and intentionally underpaying… Read More

Can a Family Member Personally Contribute to a Foundation Pledge?

Posted on December 11, 2014 by Andrew Schulz

Absolutely. There are no rules about what family members can do to support the foundation’s work. So, if the foundation has pledged $10 million to Duke University to build a new basketball stadium, and that is clearly a binding pledge on the foundation, a family member may call up the school and says, “I was going to do this out… Read More

May donors accept free tickets received due to a foundation grant?

Posted on December 11, 2014 by Andrew Schulz

This is really on the line between personal benefit and legitimate foundation business. If there isn’t a justification for the foundation to make the grant, you really shouldn’t use it for this purpose. For instance, if you are an education organization and this is the only grant you make to an arts organization, you should consider if it furthers your… Read More