End of Year Planning with WYCF: Let us be your first call for the last call of the year

Tips You Can Trust: Last Call to Help Your Clients Reach Their Giving Goals

2025 Action Required: Last Call for Current Tax Rules & Three Clients, Three Solutions, One Common Theme

Updates from Rachel Bailey, Director of Philanthropy, for December 2025 

Happy Holidays from Your Partner in Philanthropy, WYCF!

This year we worked with many wonderful attorneys, CPAs, and financial advisors. Thank you! The team at WYCF appreciates every opportunity to help you serve your philanthropic clients.

As always, we are happy to share what’s trending in the world of charitable giving. We keep a close eye on developments impacting charitable giving and relay that information to you, which saves you time as you keep up with everything else related to your clients’ tax, financial, and estate planning matters.

Here’s what’s trending:

-It’s last call! By now you are aware that 2025 is an important year to act on charitable planning before tax laws change in 2026, especially for clients who itemize deductions. Take advantage of the small window of opportunity to advise your clients and let WYCF help set up donor-advised funds and other charitable giving options.

-No two clients are the same, which is why you tailor your advice to the specific circumstances of each client. For inspiration, we are offering three examples of client scenarios and how we can collaborate with you to help manage the charitable components of a client’s plan.

As always, we are grateful for the opportunity to work together! Enjoy the holidays and thank you for all you do in your community.

Best,

Wyoming Community Foundation

2025 Action Required: Last Call for Current Tax Rules

As you work with clients through year-end tax planning, remind them that 2025 presents a small window of opportunity for charitable giving before big provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) take effect on January 1, 2026. The new law could significantly reshape the tax treatment of charitable contributions in ways that may lower the tax value of gifts made after 2025.

Here are three things you need to know: 

• Beginning with the 2026 tax year, clients who itemize will face a new 0.5% of adjusted gross income floor for charitable deductions, meaning that only the portion of their giving that exceeds that threshold will be deductible. In addition, high-income clients will see the value of their deductions capped at 35 cents on the dollar, even if they are in a higher marginal tax bracket.
• There is another new law effective in 2026 allowing taxpayers who take the standard deduction to claim a modest “above-the-line” charitable deduction—up to $1,000 for single filers and $2,000 for married couples filing jointly. This limited deduction provides far less benefit than itemizing under current rules.
• Because of upcoming changes, 2025 is expected to be a very important year for charitable planning. Your clients who itemize their deductions may benefit from “accelerating” or “bunching” contributions into their donor-advised funds at WYCF this year to take full advantage of the current, more favorable rules.

Here are two bonus “must-knows”:  

• The OBBBA did not change the rules for Qualified Charitable Distributions, which continue to allow individuals aged 70½ or older to give up to $108,000 in 2025 directly from an IRA to an eligible charity, bypassing taxable income and counting toward required minimum distributions (if applicable). Certain types of funds at WYCF, such as designated funds, unrestricted funds, field-of-interest funds, and scholarship funds (but not donor-advised funds), may receive QCDs.
• Because a QCD reduces adjusted gross income rather than functioning as an itemized deduction, it will remain unaffected by the OBBBA’s new 0.5% AGI floor and the 35% cap that will apply to itemized charitable deductions starting in 2026. As a result, QCDs may increase in value next year, offering a tax-efficient charitable giving option at a time when traditional deductions will be more limited for some clients.

Our team at WYCF is here to support you as you help clients navigate these changing rules. We are happy to serve as a resource for evaluating giving strategies, structuring multi-year plans, and helping clients use tools such as donor-advised funds, designated funds, or field-of-interest funds to get the most out of their 2025 contributions. We are here to help you and your clients reach year-end giving goals.

Three Clients. Three Solutions. One Common Theme.

As 2025 draws to a close, you know that charitable giving is important to your clients as an act of generosity and a powerful tool in tax planning.

Consider the following hypothetical client situations:

You want to help Emily Harper benefit from itemizing deductions.

Your client, Dr. Emily Harper, a married 62-year-old physician, has long supported local charities with annual donations totaling around $20,000. While generous, her giving has not exceeded the standard deduction under the current tax law, which means she has received little tax benefit for her contributions. You’ve told Emily that 2026 will bring even more limitations on her ability to deduct charitable contributions.

Working with WYCF, you are arranging for Emily to contribute $100,000 of appreciated stock this December to establish a donor-advised fund. This large, single-year contribution will allow her to itemize deductions for 2025 and maximize her tax savings, while still preserving the flexibility to recommend grants of $20,000 per year to her favorite charities over the next five years. By front-loading her philanthropy, Emily not only secured a significant deduction even under the higher standard deduction thresholds in place, but she also avoided potential exposure to the upcoming IRS “floor and cap” rules under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

You are worried about Jonathan Lee’s concentrated stock positions

Jonathan Lee, a 58-year-old business executive, has accumulated a significant position in a favorite stock over the past two decades. As Jonathan’s advisor, you have grown increasingly concerned about the concentration risk in his portfolio and the steep capital gains tax bill he would face if he sold shares outright. You also discovered that Jonathan has consistently supported some local charities with annual cash gifts.

Working with WYCF, you arranged for Jonathan to donate $250,000 worth of his highly appreciated stock to establish a donor-advised fund. This move accomplished two critical objectives: it allowed Jonathan to bypass the capital gains tax on the gifted shares and made him eligible for a full fair-market-value charitable deduction for the stock’s value on the date of the gift. Now, instead of writing annual checks from after-tax dollars, Jonathan can recommend grants from his donor-advised fund over time, maintaining his giving pattern while enjoying significant tax efficiency. Additionally, by contributing stock instead of cash, Jonathan transformed a concentrated holding into diversified charitable capital.

Margaret Davis has more money in her IRAs than she’ll ever need.

Your client, Margaret Davis, is 74 years old. She continues to receive royalty income from several books she wrote over the course of her career as a successful romance novelist. Margaret also owns several IRAs. Her royalties are more than enough to cover her living expenses; she simply does not need the Required Minimum Distributions from her IRAs. You have counseled her, though, that she must take those distributions under IRS rules.

Recently, Margaret sent you an article she read in the Wall Street Journal about Qualified Charitable Distributions, or QCDs. Truth be told, you’ve heard about QCDs, but you don’t specialize in tax planning and you simply have not had the time to get up to speed on these vehicles. But, because Margaret brought it up, you wisely dive in.

You learn that Margaret, because she is over the age of 70 ½, can direct up to $108,000 (the 2025 limit) to qualified charities. You’ve reached out to WYCF for help, and you are glad you did because the WYCF team is setting up a designated fund to receive Margaret’s QCDs. The designated fund, in turn, will support the local animal shelter, where Margaret has volunteered for decades, even after Margaret dies. What’s more, the QCD dollars are excluded from Margaret’s income and still satisfy a portion of her RMD. What’s more, the QCD reduces Margaret’s exposure to Medicare IRMAA surcharges—benefits that would not have accrued if she’d simply donated from after-tax cash.

If your client base includes people like Emily, Jonathan, and Margaret, please give us a call! The community foundation is here to help. The tax benefits are terrific, but that’s not what is most important. What’s most important is that you are helping your clients fulfill their charitable objectives, making our community and the lives of the people who live here even better for generations to come.

The team at the Wyoming Community Foundation is a resource and sounding board as you serve your philanthropic clients. We understand the charitable side of the equation and are happy to serve as a secondary source as you manage the primary relationship with your clients. This newsletter is provided for informational purposes only. It is not intended as legal, accounting, or financial planning advice.