What to Do:
- Contact your bank to complete or update your POD (Pay on Death) form for your checking, savings accounts and jointly-held accounts.
- Designate LivingWell Medical Clinic to receive the remaining account balance after your passing or after the joint account owners have passed away.
Benefits:
- You maintain control and use of the account balance during your lifetime.
- Receive a charitable deduction which will reduce any estate or inheritance taxes.
- LivingWell Medical Clinic receives the balance of the accounts to use according to your wishes.
Checking and Saving Accounts
When you opened your checking and saving account, you completed paperwork describing how the bank account will work. A POD form (“Pay on Death”) instructs the bank on how to disburse the funds remaining in the bank account when you as the account owner passes away. Your loved ones and/or LivingWell Medical Clinic may be listed on the POD form. This is a meaningful way to begin your charitable legacy. It also prevents your bank accounts from becoming part of your estate, which may have to be administered by the probate system in your state.
Jointly Held Accounts
You may be a joint-owner of the account or you may have made a loved one a joint owner. The joint-owner may make deposits and withdrawals during your lifetime. The joint-owner may also have “rights of survivorship,” meaning that he/she will automatically inherit the account when you pass away. Even if you have a joint account, you should complete to POD form to assure that the bank knows what to do with the remaining assets when both account holders have passed away and assures that the account may not become part of a time-consuming and costly probate process.
The material presented on this Legacy Giving website is not offered as legal or tax advice.
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