DAFs To The Rescue

[quote=“Bend3r, post:20, topic:2265, full:true”]
With your car donation example, if it takes you a month to ship it to a charity by freight, and for some reason the value is $1k lower that month later – Would not the donation/deduction amount be set when it’s received by the charity, not when it was “sent”?[/quote]
That was my point with something that would require an appraisal.

But it should work just as with your broker. If you tell your broker to sell your shares of Apple in the morning, the price is at the time the broker executed the order. The price may change by the time the shares get delivered to the buyer, but the transaction price remains the same.

Now a mutual fund generally utilizes the closing price at the end of the day, but the rest is the same.

Their contention is that transferring ownership of mutual funds (without liquidating) is quite a bit more complicated than ETFs or securities. And Fidelity, TRP, and Vanguard all said the same thing. Vanguard’s guidelines suggest that mutual funds held at other firms must be initiated by November 15 to be sure to be deductible that year (see Year-end Giving | Vanguard Charitable).

I’m sure this is worst-case scenario. In fact, my mutual fund shares that I was concerned about appear to have changed ownership today.

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Perhaps they’re just being cautiously conservative so they don’t have people screaming at them that the transaction they wanted to initiate on December 28th wouldn’t work.

Thanks OP for this thread. It and others educated me on DAFs for the first time. I opened one with Fidelity to maximize itemized deductions this year. Quick and painless process with Fidelity.

Thanks @JoeFriday for this thread. I didn’t know about DAF before this, but opened one with Fidelity to take advantage of 2017 itemized deductions that I probably won’t get in 2018. Even without further contributions it should fund a modest yearly gift for my charity for minimum 10 years.

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