Beneficiary Designations

Many estate assets are not transferred through a will. You can name amfAR as a beneficiary of your estate assets such as a living trust, qualified retirement plan, or the proceeds from a life insurance policy.

Living Trust

Retain control of your assets placed in a living trust during your lifetime, and direct who you will transfer these assets to upon your death. Assets may include investments, bank accounts, real estate, vehicles, or other valuable assets.

Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs) from IRAs

If you are 70.5 or older, you can donate directly to amfAR from a traditional IRA through a QCD. In addition, if you are age 73 or older, you must receive a Required Minimum Distribution from your IRA each year, which is taxable. If you don’t, there is a 25% tax penalty. In addition, if you withdraw those funds personally and then make a charitable donation, you will have to pay 37% federal income tax on those funds. But if you donate to amfAR directly from your IRA, the donation will count towards your required minimum distribution, you will avoid the federal income tax on those funds, and you will be able to take the full amount of your charitable donation as a tax deduction.

Life Insurance Policy

A simple and commonly used way to advance critical HIV research and gain tax advantages is to designate amfAR as a beneficiary of a life insurance policy. For individual life policies, you may irrevocably name amfAR as owner and beneficiary of a long-standing life insurance policy, or you may retain ownership and name amfAR as the beneficiary. If you are employed, you may be receiving group term life insurance as an employee benefit. If so, amfAR can be named as a beneficiary of the entire policy.

Charitable Remainder Trust

Make a gift to amfAR that pays income to you or others for your lifetime or for a specified term. You choose the percentage payout you wish to receive. When your trust terminates, amfAR receives the remaining principal. Many types of assets can be used to fund charitable remainder trusts including cash; appreciated securities, real estate, or collectibles; life insurance policies you plan to sell; and municipal bonds.

There are two types of charitable remainder trusts: Charitable remainder annuity trusts provide you with a set dollar amount each year, equal to your chosen percentage of the trust’s original fair-market value. Charitable remainder unitrusts provide you with a variable amount each year, equal to your chosen percentage of the changing yearly value of the trust. Over time, a unitrust may provide some hedge against inflation.

Stocks

Donors like you often find they can make a larger impact at less cost through donations of stock instead of cash. Giving stock allows you to avoid paying capital gains taxes and potentially to receive a tax deduction for the full value of the gift. In addition, amfAR is able to use the full value of the stock to fund important HIV cure research projects.

Following is the information necessary to transfer stock to our account:
Account name: The Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR)
DTC number: 8862
Account number: 879-07002
Tax ID Number: 13-3163817
amfAR Broker Contact: Erica Matloff, Merrill Lynch, 4 World Financial Center, 40th Floor, New York, NY 10281, (631) 204-2386