The Best Planned Gift May Be an Outright Gift

Ritsuko Komaki-Cox, MD, FASTRO

Planned gifts are often those that will benefit the organization sometime in the future. But some planned gifts can be gifts that help the organization now. the Radiation Oncology Institute (ROI) recently received one of these gifts that went to work immediately.

In 2019, Ritsuko Komaki-Cox, MD, FASTRO, decided to make a generous gift to the ROI in memory of her husband, James D. Cox, MD, FASTRO, to fund research awards for residents. After considering several options, Dr. Komaki-Cox decided she wished to see the impact of her gift today.

To make this gift, she used two sources of funds. First, Dr. Komaki-Cox used funds from her retirement account from which she could directly withdraw funds without penalty and without paying income tax on those funds. The gift also helped meet her required minimum distribution. This popular gift option is commonly called an IRA charitable rollover, but you may also see it referred to as a qualified charitable distribution, or QCD for short.

Second, Dr. Komaki-Cox cashed in a life insurance policy that she no longer needed. Life insurance policies can be used in several ways to make a gift. The easiest method is to name the ROI as a beneficiary of a life insurance policy. This method will provide funding for the ROI after your death, and you can change the beneficiary at any time.

Upon the advice of her investment advisor and her CPA, Dr. Komaki-Cox cashed in her insurance policy. She had to pay income taxes on the accumulated dividends in the policy, but the charitable deduction she received more than offset any tax liability. For Dr. Komaki-Cox, cashing in the life insurance policy and sending the proceeds to the ROI had the greatest advantage as she could take a tax deduction of up to 60% of her AGI (adjusted gross income). If Dr. Komaki-Cox had gifted the policy to the ROI, she would have received a smaller deduction, limited to 30% of her AGI for this non-cash gift.

Ritsuko Komaki-Cox, MD, FASTRO

With the gift made, the ROI awarded in June 2020 its first James D. Cox Resident Research Award to Oluwadamilola T. Oladeru, MD, MA, of the Harvard Radiation Oncology Program (Massachusetts General Hospital), to conduct a research project entitled "Towards Value Based Cancer Care Delivery in the U.S. Prison Health System."

To discuss how to use your assets to make a gift that benefits the ROI and its research mission now or in the future and provides tax savings for you today, contact Janet L. Hedrick at 703-839-7340 or roi@astro.org.