Breakthrough to Benefit CharitiesBreakthrough to Benefit Charities

Rorie M. Sherman Editor in Chief

David T. Leibell and Daniel L. Daniels, who've just changed firms and now are partners at Wiggin and Dana LLP, in Stamford, Conn., have this report:

Finally, the Internal Revenue Service has seen a charitable life insurance strategy that it likes.

The life insurance industry has been working for years to create strategies that would enable donors to find money to pay premiums for a life insurance policy on their lives that is owned by the donors' favorite charity. Congress and the IRS have shot down most of these attempts.

Now, the industry may have hit pay dirt: It'll be able to tap the $6 trillion in assets sitting in qualified retirement accounts, such as individual retirement accounts (IRAs) and 401(k)s. ...