Baycrest

2019 Spring/Summer Legacy Society Newsletter

Baycrest Health Sciences & Baycrest Foundation Publications

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To reach a Legacy Giving team member, please call 416-785-2500 Becki Willoughby ext. 3895, Joanne Gittens ext. 2023, Cynthia Li ext. 5180 Baycrest Foundation | 3560 Bathurst Street | Toronto | Ontario | M6A 2E1 Charitable Registration Number 11921 5242 RR0001 Professional Advisory Committee The Professional Advisory Group of the Baycrest Foundation aims to educate financial, legal and accounting professionals for the purpose of offering advice to their aging clients and families. Co-Chairs: Irving Feldman | Joshua Wise Committee: Brian Belmont | Elisabeth Colson Ashley Doidge | Zak Goldman | Leon Kieselstein Israel Mida | Allan Rakowsky| Jack Rotsztain Alexandra (Ali) Spinner | Alexander J. Swabuk Errol Tenenbaum | Kimberly Whaley Giving Back When an individual decides to make a charitable donation, the form of that donation can vary quite substantially. There are several choices that the donor can make: What are they going to donate? Will it be during their life or a planned gift after they have passed away? Our tax system encourages donations through a system of tax credits and deductions that the donor can use to reduce their personal or corporate income tax. There are certain ways to structure a gift, based on the decisions above, that may increase the size of the donation and the tax benefits to the donor. For example, I have made a planned gift of a permanent life insurance policy. I knew that I wanted to give and I also knew that I wanted to give as much as I could while not putting stress on my family's current financial obligations. I only contribute $10,000 annually for ten years into my life insurance policy; and because my policy grows tax-free, that compounding growth will result in a gift exceeding $1,000,000 after my death for a capital outlay of only $100,000. Furthermore, I have not only made a far more substantial gift, my estate will receive a tax credit of approximately $450,000. This tax credit will help to offset whatever taxes my estate will be liable to pay. Therefore, I have utilized this very simple gifting structure to turn a $100,000 outlay in my lifetime into a gift of over $1,000,000 while also creating a very substantial tax credit for my estate. Interestingly, this is one of the simplest forms of legacy planning using insurance. There are more nuanced structures that can result in even further tax efficiencies and increased donations. Zak Goldman is a partner at Sterling Park Financial Group and a member of the Baycrest Professional Advisory Committee WWII veteran volunteered at Baycrest Esther Mary Mager, a Second World War veteran and later a widowed mother of two boys, was a compassionate woman who would often help relatives and others who needed money, says her son Mark Mager. She volunteered at Baycrest for many years and left a legacy gift to the organization when she passed away at the age of 100. "She had this heart for Jewish support systems," Mark said during a visit to the Baycrest Foundation to deliver his mother's donation. "Baycrest is an essential part of the Jewish community… she was a volunteer and had a feeling for it. She cared for people in need. Elderly people have certain needs. People in hospitals have certain needs." His mother was born into the Mendelson family in Montreal in 1917. In the early 1940s – against her family's wishes – she decided to join the Air Force and signed up for the ambulance and nursing corps. Throughout the war, she was stationed in locations from Saskatchewan to Newfoundland. She married Saul Mager in 1945. Mark and his brother Howard were born soon after. The family settled in Toronto where the Mager family was located and got involved in the clothing business on Spadina Avenue. Tragically, Saul died in a train crash in 1952, leaving Esther to raise the boys alone. "She was left with a share in a business that my father was a partner in, and she managed to bring up two kids and send us to school, and had good business acumen," Mark said. "She would invest in mortgages or the stock market. She was quite savvy and she did well." Esther lived in the same house near Bathurst and Eglinton from 1952 to around 2012, when she moved to the Sunnybrook Veterans Centre. Mark believes she might have been the oldest Jewish female veteran in Canada when she died. Mark says his mother had a big heart and wanted to help people – and she saw Baycrest as a deserving recipient of her legacy gift because of the important support the organization provides to people in the community who are vulnerable. (left) Esther in uniform in 1943, in Montreal and (right) at a family gathering, later, in Toronto. Zak Goldman

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