If you would like the capital value of marketable or income-producing assets to remain in your family, but can afford to give the assets’ income stream to the Yale Peabody Museum for some time, then a charitable lead trust may be right for you.

A charitable lead trust may be particularly attractive if you wish to leverage the use of your unified transfer tax credit for making gifts to your children, or if the value of your charitable gifts already exceeds the allowable deduction limits for income tax purposes.

Because a charitable lead trust involves administration costs and some start-up costs in the form of legal or financial advice, you probably should not consider such a gift arrangement for amounts less than $500,000.