You can donate your land and your home to The Wildlife Land Trust and continue to live in your home for the rest of your life. Your gift will immediately qualify for a charitable contribution deduction for a portion of the value of your property, which will be excluded from your taxable estate. The retained life estate option also may include your spouse or partner.

How You Benefit:

• Permanent protection of your land

• State and federal income tax savings

• State and federal capital gains tax savings for any appreciation over the original cost of your property

• State inheritance tax savings and, if the value of your estate is more than the current exclusion, federal estate tax savings.

Example:

Assumptions: Your residence has an appraised value of $200,000, and your land has an appraised value of an additional $200,000. You are seventy-two years of age and your home has a useful life of forty-five years, after which time it would have a remaining value of $50,000.

You donate your land and your home to us now, but you want to continue living in your home exactly as you presently do for the rest of your life. You may claim up to $166,859.50 as a charitable deduction (based in part on your life expectancy) from your adjusted gross income on your federal tax return. In addition, the total value of your home and your land is removed from your taxable estate.

Your Tax Savings with a Retained Life Estate:

• Appraised value of your residence $200,000

• Appraised value of your land $200,000

• Amount immediately qualifying for a charitable donation $166,859.50

• Amount removed from your taxable estate $400,000

Protecting Your Land Later Through Your Will

You can donate either a conservation easement or title to your property to The Wildlife Land Trust after your death through a gift in your will. Such a donation would remove the value of your land from your taxable estate. (If you wish us to protect this land forever as a wildlife sanctuary, we encourage you to first consult with us to determine whether or not we agree that your land is suitable as a permanent wildlife sanctuary and, therefore, appropriate for our commitment to permanent protection. Doing so increases the probability that we would accept your gift and the permanent protection responsibilities your gift of sanctuary land would then require of us.)

If we determine that your property is suitable for permanent protection as a wildlife sanctuary, we and your advisors can assist you in placing adequate provisions in your will to ensure its permanent protection.

As noted before, you also can donate your property to us even if we determine that your land is not suitable as a permanent wildlife sanctuary. Provisions can be made in your will for its eventual sale by us, with the proceeds from this sale used to support our overall stewardship responsibilities or used to acquire more suitable sanctuary land, depending on your wishes.

There are several types of gifts that can be included in your will.

A Specific Gift simply gives the Trust title of your property (or another specific asset) after your death.

A Residuary Gift occurs when you leave the remainder of the value of your estate to us after specific gifts to others have been made. (Example: You have a 1,000-acre estate. Two hundred acres are left as a specific bequest to your daughter and 100 acres to a lifelong friend. The Wildlife Land Trust receives the remaining 700 acres.)

A Contingent Gift takes effect only in the event that some other bequest fails for some reason. (Example: You leave your entire estate to The Wildlife Land Trust in the event your spouse fails to survive you.)

*Note: Any reference to our Trust in your will should use our full corporate name and incorporation location: "The Humane Society of the United States Wildlife Land Trust, a nonprofit corporation, incorporated in the District of Columbia."

How You and Your Estate Benefit:

• Permanent protection of your sanctuary land if that is our agreement

• State inheritance tax savings and, if the value of your estate is more than the current exclusion, federal estate tax savings

Stewardship Support for Gifts of Land and Conservation Easements

The Wildlife Land Trust also requests stewardship support. Permanent protection of sanctuary lands imposes a substantial and permanent financial obligation on The Wildlife Land Trust. Since we are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit land trust, fulfillment of this obligation depends on our receiving adequate stewardship funding. For this reason we therefore ask donors of sanctuary lands to financially assist this stewardship undertaking. We also seek financial help from those who agree with our mission but who may not have land they want to have protected.

There are many ways to arrange for stewardship support, immediately or in the future, and we will work with you to find a way that best meets your personal situation. For example, providing financial support for our permanent stewardship responsibilities now may be burdensome. If so, you might consider providing this support through a bequest in your will.

In addition, if you have given the Trust land while retaining a life estate on it, and you have not otherwise provided for stewardship, then, if your land is unsuitable as a permanent wildlife sanctuary, it might be sold by the Trust after your death to help fund stewardship responsibilities for other sanctuaries and/or to acquire additional sanctuary acreage, depending on our agreement with you.

If a portion of your property is suitable for protection as a sanctuary but a home on it is not, we may arrange to either lease the home to someone who would agree to assist us with stewardship, maintenance, and monitoring, or sell the home (we would keep the remaining land or, depending on our agreement, retain a conservation easement) and use the proceeds from this sale to support our overall stewardship responsibilities. This fund assists us with present and future costs associated with fulfilling our responsibility to protect your land forever as a wildlife sanctuary. Alternatively, unless you inform us to the contrary, we might use some or all of the proceeds to acquire additional sanctuary land.