Charitable Contribution - Trust or Kid Benificiaries

[joelgilb]

Have a client whose father died last year. Father had a living trust and all assets from his estate were or went directly into the trust on death. The kids/beneficiaries took a substantial amount of the personal assets and then contributed them to various charities.

If I treat the contribution as made from the trust I do not see anyway to pass this through to the kids and there is no income at the trust level to offset.

Since it is the kids that actually made the contribution, does anyone see any issues with treating the personal assets as a trust distribution and then as a contribution from the kids directly?

Joel