Model Generosity: Leaving a Lasting Legacy through Planned Giving from The Global Church of the Nazarene of Lenexa, Kansas, United States for Saturday, 30 May 2015 "GiftLegacy eNewsletter"

Model Generosity: Leaving a Lasting Legacy through Planned Giving from The Global Church of the Nazarene of Lenexa, Kansas, United States for Saturday, 30 May 2015 "GiftLegacy eNewsletter"
When considering your giving options, you might want to think about a gift of real estate.These kinds of gifts offer many benefits. You can receive a charitable income tax deduction based on the value of the gift and avoid paying capital gains tax on the sale.
Your real property may be given to Church of the Nazarene Foundation by executing or signing a deed transferring ownership. You may deed part or all of your real property to Church of the Nazarene Foundation. Your gift will generally be based on the property's fair market value, which must be established by an independent appraisal.
To learn more, visit our website, www.NazareneFoundation.org. You can also contact us at 913.577.2983 or info@nazarenefoundation.org.
Blessings,
Kenneth R. Roney, J.D.
President


PERSONAL PLANNER

Who Will Receive Your Property?
"Who should receive my property?" asked Helen to her attorney, Clara. "There are so many decisions to make. Since Morgan passed away, I need to make these decisions myself. Should I give property to the children outright or in trust? Is there a best age for them to receive the property? And what if one of them were to pass away before I do? The grandchildren are still too young to manage property. I also have made a loan to one of the children. Should I forgive that loan? And what about my dog Rover? Who will take care of Rover?"
Beneficiaries of Your Will
Helen has questions that are very common. She is trying to decide who should be the beneficiary of her will. Plus, there are questions about how old children or other heirs should be when they receive her property or how she can best plan for someone to take care of the family dog.
You might have several different types of beneficiaries. There could be primary beneficiaries, contingent beneficiaries, life estate and remainder recipients, minors who receive income from a trust, debtor beneficiaries who receive forgiveness and restricted beneficiaries.
A famous American who included all of these types of gifts in his will was Benjamin Franklin.
Primary Beneficiaries
Ben Franklin gave his son William all of his property in Nova Scotia "to hold to him, his heirs and designs forever." Because William received the property outright, he was a primary beneficiary.
You might own specific property such as land, a home, or a family heirloom that you want transferred to a primary beneficiary. This is often the starting point for planning your estate distributions.
Life Estate
Franklin owned three homes on Market Street in Philadelphia, other property within Philadelphia and pasture land on Hickory Lane next to the city. He transferred the right to use that property together with his "silver plate, pictures and household goods" to his daughter Sarah Bache and her husband Richard Bache for use "during their natural lives."
This bequest created a life estate. You may have a home or other real property and desire for a person to use that property for his or her lifetime. A life estate is an excellent way to give a person life use of property.
Final Beneficiary
After the lives of Sarah and Richard Bache, the property in Philadelphia that they used was transferred to their children. This property was then solely owned by the children.
Following a life estate, the property is usually transferred outright to the remainder or final beneficiaries. If you create a life estate for a person, then you may also designate a person or perhaps a charitable organization to own the property after your life tenant passes away.
Contingent Beneficiary
Ben Franklin wanted to transfer property to his daughter and son-in-law for life, with the final distribution to their children. But what if one of the children were to pass away prior to the demise of both parents? Franklin indicated that if one of the children were "to die under age, and without issue," that share would be "equally divided among the survivors."
A contingent beneficiary is the person who will receive the property if the first person is not living at the time of the transfer. For example, you may wish to give a gift through your will to a brother or sister. But if he or she passes away before you do, then it is important to select another person to receive the property.
Trust for Minors
Ben Franklin understood that some of the children of his daughter Sarah might be quite young at the time when both parents pass away. He stated that some of them are "under age" and "may not have capacity" to manage the property. Therefore, he ordered the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania to select "three honest, intelligent, impartial men" to manage the property.
If you plan to assist young children, you will want to create a trust to manage property for the benefit of the children. Primarily, the trust will distribute income and, if needed, principal to the child until each recipient reaches your designated age for distribution of the assets.
Debtor Beneficiaries
Ben Franklin was like many parents in that he made loans to his children. As is quite often the case, he decided to forgive the loans and indicated he would discharge his son-in-law "from all claim and rent of moneys due to me."
If you have made loans to friends or family members, it is very possible that you may choose to forgive those loans. In effect, you are forgiving the debt and giving back the note or other obligation.
Pet Beneficiaries
Ben Franklin gave away his printing materials and books and left several other bequests. However, it appears that he decided not to make any provision for a pet.
During the past few years, more than half of the state legislatures in the United States have permitted a plan to benefit a pet. The simple solution is for you to transfer a family pet to a friend and make a gift of sufficient funds to provide for care of the animal. Of course, you are trusting your friend to provide that care and to use the funds appropriately.
Some states also allow you to create a pet trust. A trust can be managed by a bank or a commercial trustee, or you can select a private trustee. The property that is transferred to the trust will be used for the care of your pet.
There have been cases in which a trust was created and the trustee was directed to continue payments to the pet caregiver as long as the pet should live. Perhaps not surprisingly, Rover seemed to survive for an unusual period of time. When each Rover passed away, the family replaced Rover with a dog of similar appearance and breed. So long as the new "Rovers" kept appearing, the trust income payments were made to the family.
SAVVY LIVING

How to Find and Choose a Doctor
What resources can you recommend to help me find and research some doctors in my area? I'm looking for a good primary care doctor or internist for my elderly parents and I need to locate a goodorthopedic doctor for me.
Thanks to the Internet, finding and researching doctors is much easier than it used to be. Today there's a wide variety of websites you can turn to that provide databases of U.S. doctors, their professional medical histories, and ratings and reviews from past patients based on a number of criteria. Here are some of the best sites available, along with a few additional tips that can help you find the right doctors.
Locating Tips
To help you locate doctors in your area, a good first step, and one that doesn't require a computer, is to ask for a referral. Contact other doctors, nurses, or health care professionals that you know for some names of doctors or practices that they like and trust.
You should also call your insurance provider or visit their website directory to get a list of potential candidates. If you or your parents are Medicare beneficiaries, you can use the Physician Compare tool atmedicare.gov/physiciancompare. This will let you find doctors by name, medical specialty or by geographic location that accept original Medicare. You can also get this information by calling Medicare at 800-633-4227.
Once you find a few doctors, you need to call their office to verify that they still accept your insurance and if they are accepting new patients.
Research Tools
After you find a few doctors you're interested in, there are lots of online resources you can use to learn more about them.
For example, you can find out if a doctor is board certified at the American Board of Medical Specialties at certificationmatters.org or call 866-275-2267. To learn about malpractice claims and disciplinary actions taken against doctors, you can use your state medical board - see fsmb.org/state-medical-boards/contacts to search your state.
Here are some other good websites that can help you find and/or research doctors in your area for free.
Healthgrades.com: This comprehensive easy-to-use site provides information relating to doctors' education and training, hospital affiliations, board certification, awards and recognitions, professional misconduct, disciplinary action and malpractice records, office locations and insurance plans. It also offers a 5-star ratings scale from past patients on a number of issues like communication and listening skills, wait time, time spent with the patient, office friendliness and more.
Vitals.com: Provides background information on doctors' awards, expertise, hospital affiliations, and insurance as well as patient ratings on measures such as bedside manner, follow-up, promptness, accuracy of diagnosis and average wait time. There's also a patient comment section.
RateMDs.com: Provides information on training as well as patient ratings on staff, punctuality, helpfulness and knowledge. Patients can also post questions and answers about doctors and get doctors' ratings based on patient reviews.
Look Up Tool: If you want to find out how many times a doctor did a particular service and what they charge for it, go to data.cms.gov and click on "Medicare Physician and Other Supplier Look-up Tool" at the top of the page.
AngiesList.com: If you don't mind spending a little money ($20/per year), Angie's List is a membership service that provides doctor reviews using an A through F scale.
When researching a doctor, it's wise to check out several of these sites so you can get a bigger sampling and a better feel of how previous patients are rating a particular doctor.
Savvy Living is written by Jim Miller, a regular contributor to the NBC Today Show and author of "The Savvy Living” book. Any links in this article are offered as a service and there is no endorsement of any product. These articles are offered as a helpful and informative service to our friends and may not always reflect this organization’s official position on some topics. Jim invites you to send your senior questions to: Savvy Living, P.O. Box 5443, Norman, OK 73070.
YOUR PLAN

Joe and Anna have been faithful supporters of our organization. They believe it is important to support and encourage our mission.
Joe: Several years ago, Anna and I decided to become part of the organization's mission. We believe that they are truly helping others. We think that it is important to partner with them to make a difference. For that reason, Anna and I have made gifts over the years to help others.
Anna: We wanted to do more than to just make gifts. Joe and I have been careful over the years and have accumulated some resources. We plan to be generous with family, but we also have the ability to be generous with charity.
After talking it over, we decided to leave a bequest in our will. Our attorney took the simple language available from the organization and included a nice bequest. We are delighted that we will be helping others through them.
You also may want to make it easy and convenient to have a bequest included in your will. The language link below shows how a bequest can very easily be included in your will.
You might find it helpful to print this page and the bequest language. Please feel free to give this information to your attorney. If he or she has any questions, please contact us.
Click Here to review sample bequest language.
*Please note: The name and image above is representative of a typical donor and may or may not be an actual donor to our organization. Since your benefits may be different, you may want to click here toview a color example of your benefits.
WASHINGTON NEWS

IRS Progress on Identity Theft
In a May 28 report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), the IRS showed reasonable progress in efforts to combat identity theft. During tax year 2012, TIGTA estimated that there were 787,343 potential fraudulent returns with approximately $2.1 billion in claimed refunds.
The IRS uses a software method called “cluster filtering” to detect returns with requests for multiple refunds. Because fraudsters often file hundreds of returns and request the refunds be sent to the same address, the IRS attempts to track these individuals and locate tax refund fraudsters.
Through its searches the IRS discovered 517,360 returns with potentially fraudulent refund requests. The claimed refunds were a total of $3.1 billion.
The IRS published a statement in response to the TIGTA report. It noted, “We catch more refund fraud on the front end before the legitimate taxpayer even files, and as such, the IRS has improved our ability to help victims and potential victims as they go through the process. We closely monitor incomingtax returns, watching for fraud indicators and adjusting our systems as necessary.”
Editor’s Note: The IRS has made identity theft and tax refund fraud a high priority. It now has also sent requests for changes to Congress. Most of the IRS Form 1099 and Form 1098 information returns must be filed by February 28, but some electronic filing is permitted until March 1. The IRS is asking Congress to move up the filing dates. With better information the IRS will be able to catch more “early filer” tax fraudsters.
FINANCES

Stocks - AutoZone Reports Mixed Earnings

AutoZone, Inc. (AZO) released its latest quarterly earnings report on Tuesday, May 26. The company's revenue came in just below analyst forecasts, but net income increased year-over-year.
The company reported net sales of $2.49 billion for the quarter. This represents an increase from the same quarter last year when AutoZone reported net sales of $2.34 billion. However, analysts had expected net sales of $2.50 billion.
"We are pleased to report our thirty-fifth consecutive quarter of double digit earnings per share growth," said Bill Rhodes, Chairman, President and CEO of AutoZone. "AutoZoners across the company remain committed to providing superior service to our customers and that dedication has resulted in consistent, solid performance. We continued to diligently work on our inventory availability initiatives, including expanding our multi-deliveries per week to test stores and opening two additional mega hub storelocations."
AutoZone reported net income of $309.07 million. This represents an increase from the comparable period last year when the company reported net income of $285.16 million. Earnings per share came in at $9.57.
AutoZone repurchased 763,000 shares during the quarter. The repurchase program cost the company $515 million.
AutoZone, Inc. (AZO) shares ended the week at $673.62, down 2.2% for the week.
Costco Reports Solid Earnings
Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST) reported its latest quarterly earnings on Wednesday, May 27. The company reported a drop in same-store sales, but strong earnings overall.
Costco reported quarterly revenue of $26.10 billion. This represents an increase from the same period last year when the company reported revenue of $25.79 billion.
"So to begin with, our 12-week third quarter fiscal 2015 operating results for the quarter, earnings per share came in at $1.17 a share, a 9% increase over last year's third quarter earnings results of $1.07 a share," said Richard Galanti, Executive Vice President and CFO of Costco. "In terms of sales for the third quarter, total sales were up 1% and our 12-week reported comparable sales figure came in down 1%. For the quarter, sales were negatively impacted as you all know by gasoline price deflation. That represented about a 350 basis point negative impact and by weaker foreign currencies relative to the U.S. dollar year-over-year."
The company reported net income of $516 million for the quarter. This represents an increase from the comparable period last year when Costco reported net income of $473 million.
Costco is the second largest retailer in the United States after Wal-Mart Stores. Costco reported that same store sales fell 1% during the quarter. This is the first drop in quarterly same store sales since 2009. The drop is mostly due to falling gas prices and a strong dollar, which hurt international sales. Not taking these two factors into consideration, sales increased 6% at Costco stores in business for at least one year.
Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST) shares ended the week at $142.59, down 1% for the week.
Tiffany & Co. Reports Strong Earnings
Tiffany & Co. (TIF) released the results of its latest quarterly earnings on Wednesday, May 27. Despite a drop in earnings, the company beat analysts' estimates for the quarter.
Tiffany's reported $962.40 million in quarterly net sales. This represents a slight decrease from the same quarter last year when the company reported net sales of $1.01 billion.
"We started the year facing well-known challenges from both global economic uncertainties and the effect of a strong U.S. dollar on the translation of foreign-denominated sales into dollars and on foreign tourist spending in the U.S., as well as a difficult sales comparison in Japan. Despite those factors, our first quarter results for net sales, as well as for gross margin and net earnings, were somewhat better than we anticipated. First quarter highlights also included the continuing success of the stylish TIFFANY T jewelry collection, as well as the launch of our extraordinary CT60™ watch collection."
The company reported net income of $104.90 million for the quarter. This represents a decrease from the comparable quarter last year when Tiffany's reported net income of $125.60 million.
Tiffany & Co. announced Thursday it will raise its quarterly dividend to $0.40 per share or $1.60 per share per year. The company has raised its dividend fourteen times in the past thirteen years. At current stock prices, the dividend yield is 1.7%.
Tiffany & Co. (TIF) shares ended the week at $93.73, up 7.6% for the week.
The Dow started the week of 5/25 at 18,230 and closed at 18,011 on 5/29. The S&P 500 started the week at 2,125 and closed at 2,107. The NASDAQ started the week at 5,077 and closed at 5,070.
Bonds - Treasury Yields Fall

Treasury prices rose and yields fell on Friday after the Institute for Supply Management released information on regional factory activity. In addition, the Commerce Department released an updated figure for the growth of the U.S. economy in the first quarter of 2015.
The Institute for Supply Management's (ISM) barometer of manufacturing activity in the Chicago area fell from 52.3 in April to 46.2 in May. A reading below 50 indicates contraction. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg estimated that the index would rise to 53 in May.
The ISM report and usual month-end bond purchasing caused Treasury prices to rise and yields to fall. The 10-year Treasury yield fell to 2.1% in early Friday trading. The 30-year Treasury yield fell to 2.85%.
While the ISM index indicates manufacturing contracted in May, the Commerce Department released a report showing the economy shrank less than economists had expected in the first quarter of 2015. Economists estimated that the economy would contract 1% in the first quarter. However, on Friday the Commerce Department reported a contraction of only 0.7%.
Last Friday, Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen indicated that the Fed is on track to raise rates at some point during 2015. Most analysts interpret this to mean that the Fed is planning to raise rates in September or December. However, some believe that the rates will remain low into 2016. "The market simply doesn't believe the data will be strong enough to let the Fed boost rates this year," said Aaron Kohli, Interest Rates Strategist at BNP Paribas in New York.
The 10-year Treasury note yield finished the week of 5/25 at 2.09% while the 30-year Treasury note yield finished the week at 2.85%.
CDs and Mortgages - Interest Rates Rise

Freddie Mac released the results of its latest Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) on Thursday, May 28. The results showed average fixed mortgage rates rising to a five-month high.
The 30-year fixed rate mortgage averaged 3.87% this week. This was up from last week when it averaged 3.84%.
This week, the 15-year fixed rate mortgage averaged 3.11%. This number was up from last week when it averaged 3.05%.
"Mortgage rates rose to the highest level in 2015 following positive housing market data," said Len Kiefer, Deputy Chief Economist at Freddie Mac. "New home sales surged 6.8% to an annual pace of 517,000 units in April. Although existing home sales slipped 3.3% to a seasonally-adjusted pace of 5.04 million units, sales are up 6.1% on a year-over-year basis. The S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index also posted a solid gain of 5% over the 12-months ending in March 2015."
The money market fund finished the week of 5/25 at 0.4%. The 1-year CD finished at 0.6%.
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Are you a Nazarene Legacy Partner (NLP)? The answer is “YES” if you have designated any gift to a Nazarene ministry in your will, bequest, or estate plan. This could be a tithe on your estate, an insurance beneficiary designation to your local church, college, global mission, or any other Nazarene ministry you support.
Send us your name and contact information by reply email and indicate “I am a Nazarene Legacy Partner” and we will add your name to our NLP honor roll. To model generosity inspires others to do the same. Thank you for your interest in gift planning. To access any of this updated financial and gift planning information, please select our website.
The Global Church of the Nazarene Foundation

17001 Prairie Star Parkway, Suite 200

Lenexa, Kansas 66220 United States
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