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Stock market volatility affects everyone who has securities investments, regardless of how much they have or the degree to which they depend on those holdings to meet current needs. The unpredictable ups and downs may cause you to feel uneasy and wonder what steps to take—if any.

If you stay the course, you may continue to accrue losses. If you decide to sell, there may be a capital-gain tax bill to pay if the price is up from your cost basis—even after a downturn. You might even wonder if the stock will immediately turn around and go up after you sell. There are no easy answers, and the questions warrant a conversation with your financial advisors.

However, if you are a person with charitable goals, you may have options for dealing with your securities not available to those who don’t—options you can benefit from regardless of which direction the price of your securities has gone or will go in the future. Consider these scenarios:

• The value of your stock has dropped but is still more than you paid for it. If you want to step out of that investment but don’t want to sell and incur taxable capital gain, you can, instead, use the stock to fund a gift to support our mission. Result: If you have owned the stock for more than one year and itemize deductions, you will be entitled to deduct the full fair-market value of the stock without realizing any taxable gain despite the fact it is worth more now than when you bought it.
• The value of your stock has dropped and is worth less than what you paid for it. If you have lost confidence in the stock and decide to sell it, you will generate a loss that you can use to offset other gain—or even some ordinary income if you have no realized gain—and use the proceeds of the sale to make your charitable gifts. Caution: You cannot deduct the loss if you repurchase the same stock too quickly. Work closely with your financial advisor on timing if you have a change of heart and want to get back into that investment.
• Your stock has gone up since you bought it, and you want to keep owning it. If you have owned the stock for more than one year, you can make a gift to support our work and generate a deduction for the full fair-market value. Better still, you can immediately buy it back, creating a higher cost basis that can reduce taxes on the gain if you sell in the future.

Please contact our office if we can help with any questions about your charitable giving. We welcome the opportunity to connect with you.