May 2026 Professional Advisor News

You’re likely aware that regularly talking with your clients about charitable giving can strengthen your relationships. That’s not surprising, considering that the topic of philanthropy itself helps uncover values, build trust, and position you as not just an advisor but as a holistic partner. Recent research shows that 99% of advisors believe these conversations are important and 96% see them as their responsibility, highlighting both the expectation and the opportunity for advisors to engage more deeply.

Still, this is sometimes easier said than done when a specific client is sitting in front of you. A survey conducted by the Generosity Commission, followed by a peer-reviewed publication of the research in March 2026, underscores a powerful takeaway for attorneys, CPAs, and financial advisors: nearly every client is a charitable client in some way. More than 80% of Americans reported giving in some form, including volunteering and board service.

The key is not identifying whether a client is philanthropic but rather understanding how and why they give—and then meeting them where they are. GiveWell Community Foundation can help! Consider the following hypothetical client examples:

All over the place
Jim and Pat are among your most generous clients. You know, based on reviewing their tax returns, that they give substantial gifts to charitable organizations every year and are frequently the first to say “yes” when a nonprofit asks for support. Interestingly, you’ve observed that Jim and Pat lack a clear plan or a strong attachment to a particular approach.

Slightly skeptical
Sandy and Taylor are motivated to give, but they want to be sure their contributions are making a real difference. Over the many years they’ve been your clients, you’ve witnessed Sandy and Taylor hesitate to make donations when they are uncertain about how funds will be used.

On a budget
Your clients, Barbara and Jon, are deeply motivated to give but feel financially constrained. They often express strong values around helping others, and you know they are already giving modest amounts on a regular basis. Still, they view themselves as “small potatoes” and assume that more structured or impactful philanthropy is out of reach.

And more! 
Beyond these examples, dozens more clients fall somewhere along the spectrum of charitable inclinations and styles. You likely have clients who are already making significant gifts, serving on nonprofit boards, and actively seeking ways to increase their impact. Other clients are very open to sophisticated planning techniques and can benefit from strategies that integrate charitable giving with broader estate and tax planning goals. Many clients have already begun making gifts of appreciated assets, setting up charitable trusts, or implementing strategies that support long-term community needs. In all of these cases, the Community Foundation can help unlock opportunities that are both highly effective and deeply aligned with the client’s intentions.

The takeaway here is that charitable planning is not a niche service reserved for a small subset of your clients. It is a broadly relevant component of holistic advising. By listening carefully for clues about a client’s motivations, values, and concerns, you can identify opportunities to introduce charitable strategies in ways that feel natural and appropriate. What’s more, when you loop in the Community Foundation, our team will help bring those strategies to life by offering flexible tools, local expertise, and administrative support that can make charitable planning both effective and accessible for a wide range of your clients.

As always, the Community Foundation is here to serve as a resource as you guide your clients through these conversations.

At GiveWell Community Foundation, we work with business leaders and owners every day to structure charitable giving plans that support both corporate goals and community impact. Whether your corporate clients give directly to local nonprofits or organize philanthropy through a fund at the Community Foundation, thoughtful planning has always mattered. In 2026, it matters even more.

As an attorney, CPA, or financial advisor, you’re likely well aware that new rules governing corporate charitable deductions are now in place. These changes are significant, and they are already influencing how companies approach giving. The good news is that with a bit of planning—and the right partners—your business clients can continue to support the causes they care about in a way that is both impactful and tax-efficient.

Here are key points for your work with charitable corporate clients:

The new 1% “floor” is now a reality.
As of January 1, 2026, corporations may deduct charitable contributions only to the extent that total giving exceeds 1% of taxable income. In practical terms, this means that a company with $100 million in taxable income must contribute more than $1 million before any portion of its charitable giving becomes deductible—and even then, only the amount above that threshold qualifies for a deduction.

For many companies, this is a meaningful shift. Gifts that previously generated a tax benefit may no longer do so unless they are structured differently or timed strategically. This is where the Community Foundation can help. By working with our team, your corporate clients can evaluate whether to concentrate their giving in certain years, use a corporate donor-advised fund to manage timing, or align contributions with broader financial planning goals. In some cases, bundling multiple years of anticipated giving into a single year may help exceed the threshold and unlock a deduction that would otherwise be lost.

The 10% “ceiling” still applies—and now interacts with the floor.
The long-standing rule allowing corporations to deduct charitable contributions up to 10% of taxable income remains in place. However, now that the 1% floor is also in effect, both rules must be considered together. Only the portion of giving that falls between 1% and 10% of taxable income is deductible in a given year.

Amounts that fall below the floor or exceed the ceiling are not lost, but they are subject to carryforward rules for up to five years. Even so, using those carryforwards effectively requires careful coordination. In any future year, deductions are available only if total giving again exceeds the 1% floor and the combined total of current and carried-forward contributions remains within the 10% cap.

This layering of rules adds complexity, especially for companies with fluctuating income or evolving giving priorities. The Community Foundation can serve as a central hub for tracking, coordinating, and implementing your clients’ strategies over time. For example, a corporate donor-advised fund can help your business client separate the timing of tax recognition from the timing of grantmaking, allowing you to support nonprofits consistently while managing deductions more intentionally.

Timing and structure matter more than ever.
Now that these rules are in effect, taking a “set it and forget it” approach to corporate giving may lead to missed opportunities. Instead, this is an ideal time to encourage your business clients to revisit their company’s overall philanthropic strategy.

Working with the Community Foundation, your clients can model different scenarios based on projected income and giving levels. You can also help your clients explore how a corporate fund might help smooth out year-to-year variations, ensuring that charitable dollars continue to flow to the community even when tax considerations shift. In addition, the Community Foundation’s professional staff can help your corporate clients align giving strategies with the company’s broader goals, including employee engagement, community visibility, and long-term impact.

Don’t overlook sponsorship opportunities.
It’s also important to remember that not all support for charitable organizations is treated the same way for tax purposes. Payments that provide a direct business benefit—such as advertising or brand visibility—may be deductible as ordinary business expenses rather than as charitable contributions if the payment provides a direct business benefit, such as advertising, rather than being considered a pure charitable donation. Under IRS rules, a business must substantiate the benefit received.

The Community Foundation can help you think through these distinctions with your clients and coordinate with the organizations your clients support to ensure that transactions are handled correctly on both sides.

Keep going!
These changes to corporate charitable deduction rules do not diminish the importance of corporate philanthropy—they simply raise the bar for thoughtful planning. With the right strategy, your corporate clients can continue to make a meaningful difference in the community while effectively navigating the new landscape.

“Charitable lead trust” is far from a household term, and you might not run across the need for one very often in your practice. They sure do come in handy in certain client situations, though. At GiveWell Community Foundation, it’s easy to establish a donor-advised fund or another type of fund to serve as the income beneficiary of a charitable lead annuity trust, or “CLAT,” established by a client.

It’s worth briefly reviewing the basics of a CLAT because they are having a moment! Here’s what’s going on:

• The Internal Revenue Service issued Private Letter Ruling 202614004 on April 3, 2026, addressing whether a CLAT can be terminated early by accelerating its remaining payments to a charitable organization.
• The ruling involved a CLAT that so significantly outperformed expectations that the trustee proposed distributing all remaining annuity payments in a lump sum to a donor-advised fund and then winding down the trust.
• The IRS concluded that this early termination would not trigger self-dealing penalties, would not be treated as a taxable expenditure, and would not result in a termination tax—largely because the payment was made to a qualified public charity and fulfilled the trust’s charitable purpose.

Of course, as is the case with all private letter rulings, PLR 202614004 represents the IRS’s non-precedential interpretation of tax law and is binding only between the IRS and the specific taxpayer who requested the ruling. Still, private letter rulings are often cited to show the IRS’s probable position.

So why is this seemingly obscure private letter ruling relevant as an indicator of the IRS’s likely position in similar future situations? Here’s why:

• CLATs are generally subject to private foundation rules, including strict prohibitions on self-dealing with “disqualified persons.” In this instance, however, the IRS emphasized that a 501(c)(3) public charity (including a donor-advised fund sponsor) is not considered a disqualified person for these purposes, allowing the accelerated payment without adverse consequences.
• PLR 202614004 highlights that charitable planning vehicles like CLATs may offer more flexibility than previously assumed, particularly when circumstances change or when a trust significantly outperforms projections. What’s more, the ruling reinforces the importance of understanding how technical rules—such as self-dealing restrictions—apply differently depending on the type of charitable recipient involved.

Charitable lead trusts are extremely complex and can be structured in different ways to achieve a client’s specific tax objectives. Still, as you work with charitably-inclined clients, keep an eye out for a scenario that may be well-suited for a charitable lead annuity trust:

• The client, whose net worth is likely to be subject to estate tax, owns rapidly appreciating assets (such as pre-IPO stock).
• The client wants to transfer significant wealth to heirs in a tax-efficient way.
• The client wants to make immediate and meaningful charitable gifts while they are living.

A client like this could establish a CLAT and name a donor-advised fund at the Community Foundation as the income beneficiary. The CLAT would make fixed annual payments to the donor-advised fund for a term of years. The donor-advised fund, in turn, could support the client’s favorite charitable organizations via the client’s grant recommendations.

At the end of the trust term, any remaining assets in the CLAT would pass to the client’s children or other heirs, often without triggering additional gift or estate tax, assuming the trust was structured properly and investment performance meets or exceeds IRS assumptions.

For clients who want to enjoy charitable giving during their lifetimes and reduce estate and gift taxes on highly appreciating assets, a CLAT is worth a look.

Remember that a CLAT is just one of hundreds of charitable giving vehicles through which the Community Foundation can help your clients achieve their charitable and estate planning goals. As always, please reach out when working with a charitable client, regardless of where that client is along the charitable giving journey.

 

As you work with charitable clients over the course of your career, you may have the opportunity to help dozens of married couples establish donor-advised funds (or other types of charitable funds at GiveWell Community Foundation), structure charitable gifts in wills and trusts, establish charitable remainder trusts, and everything in between.

But what happens to charitable assets in the event of divorce? Over the last few years, in the wake of high-profile divorces, more and more advisors have been pondering this question. It’s certainly worth considering so you can be prepared if–and when–you encounter such a situation. It’s especially important as women play an increasingly important role in a couple’s philanthropy.

For many couples, philanthropy is deeply personal and closely tied to shared values developed over time. What’s more, advisors who engage both partners on all planning matters, including charitable giving, are more likely to grow their practices and earn client referrals.

But from a legal standpoint, charitable giving during marriage is not purely personal—it is often subject to the same rules that govern other marital assets.

The implications extend beyond outright gifts. Philanthropic vehicles such as donor-advised funds, private foundations, and charitable trusts can also become points of negotiation in divorce. These structures may no longer be considered part of the marital estate once funded, but questions about control, governance, and ongoing advisory privileges can still create tension between spouses.

For attorneys, CPAs, and financial advisors, the takeaway is clear: charitable planning does not exist in a vacuum. Conversations about significant gifts (especially those made during marriage) should include coordination with legal counsel and, where appropriate, documentation of mutual intent. Encouraging clients to align on charitable decisions in advance can help avoid disputes later and preserve both financial and philanthropic goals.

As always, remember that the Community Foundation is here for you! Whether a client is considering a current gift, establishing a charitable vehicle, or navigating a complex life transition such as divorce, we can serve as a resource to help implement the recommendations of legal and tax counsel in a way that is both effective and durable. Anytime you are talking with a client about charitable giving, give us a call! Including the Community Foundation early in the conversation can help ensure that your clients’ charitable intentions are carried out smoothly, even when circumstances change.