How do I model charitable giving in my estate?

You can model charitable giving as a percentage of your estate. Click the Net Legacy card on the Estate page to open the Estate Settings drawer, then set a value in the Charitable Giving section.

How the split works

Charitable giving does not reduce Net Legacy – Net Legacy is the full pool available for any distribution. What the Charitable Giving percentage controls is how that pool is divided:

• A slice goes to charity.
• The remainder goes to heirs (shown as To Heirs on the Estate page).

On the Estate page Sankey, Charitable Giving and To Heirs appear as separate terminal nodes drawn from the Net Legacy pool.

Tax-efficient allocation

PL doesn’t pull charitable dollars evenly. Donations are allocated from your highest-tax-rate assets first, because those are the ones heirs would lose the most to:

• Tax-deferred accounts (401(k), traditional IRA) – heirs would owe income tax on distributions.
• Taxable brokerage – heirs may owe capital gains if no step-up applies in your country.
• Roth and tax-free accounts – heirs pay nothing, so these come out of the pool last.

Net effect: you give the same percentage of your estate, but what remains for heirs is more tax-efficient.

Where to see the impact

• Estate page – the Sankey shows Charitable Giving and To Heirs as separate terminal flows.
• Compare Mode – run the same plan with and without charitable giving to see the difference in Net Legacy and in the amount reaching heirs.

See also: Net Legacy.