Plan Now

Now is the best time to take advantage of some of these important year-end, tax-planning strategies.

The Florida Holocaust Museum’s Holiday List of Giving Strategies

Accelerate Deductions/Defer Income: If possible, try to defer income into next year while accelerating deductions in the current year. Examples:

• To Life Dinner—buy your tickets or pay for a table next year. To RSVP, send an
  e-mail to

• Pledges—if you made one payment during the year, make another before year end.

• Membership—if you are a member, renew or increase your membership level before the end of the year. If you are not, please become one. Membership makes a unique holiday gift!

• Honor/Memorial—a gift to the FHM is a wonderful way to honor, memorialize or celebrate a life cycle event.

Make Gifts of Appreciated Securities: The market has come back over the past few months. Take advantage by making a gift of appreciated securities. You deduct the full, fair market value on the date of the gift and pay no capital gains tax when the securities are sold by the museum. If you do have a few losers in your portfolio, sell them, take a capital loss, give the proceeds and get a charitable income tax deduction.

Use Your Credit Card: Since the charge will be debited to your account in the current year, that is the year in which you can take the charitable income tax deduction; even though you might not pay the bill until next year. (An extra gift to yourself is the build up of those frequent flyer miles!)

Send a check: If you plan to make a gift the old fashioned way by writing a check, make sure it is delivered to the museum prior to January 1. If you put it in the mail, it must be post marked on or before December 31. Print our Gift Donation Form and mail it with your check. (The form is an Adobe Acrobat® PDF file. You will need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader® to view and print the file.) Mail to: Florida Holocaust Museum, Office of Development, 55 5th Street South, St. Petersburg, Florida 33701.

Deduction Today/Charitable Grants Tomorrow: If you are in a position where you need to generate a large charitable income tax deduction before the end of the year but you are not sure if you want all of the dollars to come to the museum in that year, you can create a special fund with the Museum’s History Heritage and Hope Foundation. Using cash, appreciated securities, a credit card or a combination, you can create your charitable fund in the current year and make charitable distributions from the fund next year and subsequent years.

Keep Your Eye on The Calendar: Timing is critical if you are going to get your charitable deductions for the current year. If you are giving appreciated securities, you must either deliver the certificates on or before December 31 or your broker/financial advisor must transfer the securities from your account to the museum on or before December 31. (We can help you with that—send an e-mail to ). If you use the ordinary mail, get a receipt from the post office showing the date the letter was put in the mail.

Your gift to the Florida Holocaust Museum or the History Heritage and Hope Foundation in the current year(or at any time) will ensure that the lessons of the Holocaust will never be forgotten and the world will be a more peaceful and hopeful place in which to live.

Request a confidential meeting today to discuss charitable planning opportunities!

Send an e-mail to donations .