Get Creative With General, Residuary, Contingent and Percentage Bequests.

General, residuary and contingent bequests aren't equal from a tax perspective, but they do give donors some creativity in how they bequeath their assets and the executor of a donor's estate some flexibility to satisfy a bequest in a financially smart way, says Dana Holt, president of Holt Consulting (Minneapolis, MN). Holt describes several types of charitable bequests: B General bequests. b An example of a general bequest is one in which a donor might say, "I want to leave $100,000 to X charity", but they aren't allocating a specific asset, just a value, and then allowing the executor to determine which assets will be used to satisfy that bequest. Donors can also mix and match these different types of charitable bequests says Holt: "For example, a donor might want to give 25 percent of their estate to their sister, but, should she predecease them, they want that to go to charity. [Extracted from the article]