Bill Cisar: Making The Best Out Of Tax Reduction And Legacy-building With Private Foundations

Strickland Bonner: So you're a lawyer, and your clients are squeezing you for lower fees. How do you put more cash in your pocket? We want to expose you to new ways of practicing law. Endless hours with no home life and a lease on an expensive office are so 1999. It's time to make a change for the better. Here to help you with that are your hosts Ron Boxdollar and Kirsten Mayfield. Welcome to the 1958 Lawyer Podcast.

Ron Bockstahler: Welcome to the show, the 1958 Lawyer. I am your co-host Ron Boxdollar,

Kirsten Mayfield: and I'm Kirsten Mayfield, and we have with us today Bill Caesar. He's been practicing law for nine years. The first seven he spent as an associate at a boutique firm, and in 2019 he opened his own solo practice where he specializes in small business matters, estate planning, contract, and nonprofit formation and governance. One of the cornerstones of his practice is the formation of private foundations and other exempt entities. 1023, if that means anything to you, listening for charitable and estate planning purposes, we're really excited to have him on today. This is an area of law never really given much thought to, and that's always when I have favorite guests. So, Bill, thank you so much for joining us today.

Bill Cisar: Thank you, Kirsten. Thank you, Ron. I'm really excited to be here. It's a it's an area of law that's really near and dear to my heart too, so I'm excited for this.

Kirsten Mayfield: Awesome. How about you?

Ron Bockstahler: Yeah, go ahead.

Kirsten Mayfield: We're going to ask the same thing, I'm sure. How did you? How did you get into this? How did you get into law and choose this specific area?

Bill Cisar: That's a great question. So, law for me was kind of a family business matter. My father was an attorney. His law partner, who was like an uncle to me, was an attorney, obviously, and they formed their own firm in the '90s. And I went to law school always with the idea that hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna join their practice, which is exactly what I did. I went to law school in Arizona. I received an ILLM from Arizona State University in taxation, and I immediately began working for my father's firm in Oakbrook, and their firm was fascinating. Their business model was they managed a small amount of high net worth clients in their estate planning, corporate transactions, and other you know personal matters, and usually, if not always, managing their estates. These high net worth individuals involved some sort of entity, a charitable entity, or what they call like a family limited partnership, which is a non charitable entity that's created for tax planning purposes, so right out of the gate, I had the opportunity to learn how to create a not-for-profit, how to manage the not-for-profit, run meetings, things like that, and how to account for a not-for-profit. It's donations, you know, from maybe a wealthy family out to the various charities. It was a really, really good experience. My father's law partner was a tax attorney. was very brilliant. But you know, as I think most of these types of of things go, as you get older, you want to you want to make a name for yourself, and you want to you know go out on your own. So in 2019, I I established my own practice with my thought being in mind is I wanted to make creations of charitable entities and small you know small business legal needs available to everyone you know and and does that mean a lower cost yeah it means a lower cost but I think it also it means a little bit more transparency in dealing with the client, a little bit offering options that might not be available to, you know, lesser established clients. And so, in my practice, I've I've had the opportunity to form numerous foundations and run the governance of an administration of them to date, and it's and it's been fantastic.

Kirsten Mayfield: I love that. I love when we ever we get someone on who's like gunning for the little guy. And so my first like thought is, what is your billing structure? How did you approach your billing for this kind of clientele?

Bill Cisar: So it's it's always going to be a case by case basis. You know, if I have, you know, quasi high net worth individual come to me and say, "Hey, I want to form a charitable entity as part of my estate plan. Usually, the way that works is, you know, they have an estate plan, wills and trusts, but they want a certain amount of their money to pour over to their foundation, you know, so their kids can help administer to charitable activities and things like that. If if I have someone like that, and it's in conjunction with you know a fairly advanced estate plan, I'd say it's a competitive rate. You know, I I definitely not big firm rate, and I I always send out proposals with the amounts I intend to charge overall. So nobody's ever, you know, playing hide the ball. What I do with small businesses, you know, mid-level individuals is I work purely on a flat fee, and I learned this from a continuing legal education video I watched on small firm management, and it was in that was in a coalition with I think it was it's called JEP for the Chicago Bar Association, where they're creating this billing system where you pay a flat monthly rate and you get lawyer services. The lawyer loves it because they're not chasing down bills, and the client loves it because you know they're they're paying a flat monthly rate. So, if I had somebody who say wanted to start a community theater organization, they don't they don't have any real estate. They might be renting. They don't have anything as it stands now. I would take a look at them and I'd say, okay, well, you know, incorporation fees, the fee for actually filing the application for exemption. There's nothing I can do about that, but we can work something out where you pay me, say, between you know 405 $100 a month until we get this thing set up, and that usually ends up paying significantly less than most of the competitors in in creating these entities, unless you go, you know, the self help route where you try to do it yourself.

Ron Bockstahler: Bill, let's talk a little about like who creates a private foundation. I mean, if I'm looking, I'm thinking to myself, okay, if I'm a successful business person, I make it anywhere from you know, say, I don't know, let's say $300,000 up. I've been doing it for 20 years. I've put away a lot of cash. Maybe it's time for me to create a foundation. Is that the right climbing? Am I on the right track here?

Bill Cisar: Absolutely. That usually starts with a pretty in-depth conversation about what your goals are. Meaning, the individual you just you just named could absolutely be a fantastic candidate for a private foundation. Maybe not necessarily for the most efficient tax planning, because you're still going to get a higher tax deduction by giving outright to charity than you would for your own private foundation. But most people who have had some success like that are very interested in legacy planning, meaning I want to create an entity that's going to be tied to my family's name, that's going to be something that you know generations of my family can kind of gather around and use not only you know as a methodology to teach the younger people how to administer money and network and things like that, but also, you know, as an excuse to have meetings and get together and have a common goal. So I, you know, I have a lot of meetings with people, you know, who successful people, but maybe don't have more money than say, you know, the federal estate tax exemption. Who, you know, I make the disclaimer. You know, you could set up a donor advised fund at the bank, or just keep giving to the YMCA or the Red Cross, and you're probably going to get a higher deduction. And they say to me, "But you know, I want to do something with my kids, and that's that's the main driver. And I think that's one of the reasons why you see so many athletes form these things. I mean, obviously, there's going to be tax efficiencies linked with it, but you know, after you're done and you know done playing sports, you still want to have kind of this name recognition and purpose to to keep moving forward. And that that I have found in my practice that is the number one driver for individuals.

Ron Bockstahler: So let's talk about some of the benefits of forming this, but let's break it into a large foundation like the Clinton Foundation compared to a smaller foundation like the Ron Boxdoll or Potential Foundation. What are going to be the pros and cons, and what's the benefits? Bigger foundations have more benefits, and let's talk to that.

Bill Cisar: Now we get to now. We get to jump to my soapbox and social justice here. Just like all incidences of income inequality, larger foundations versus smaller foundations find themselves butting heads, and the larger foundations have more benefits. And here's why. So when you create a private foundation, you're entitled to all of the incidences of of operation, meaning you know salaried employees, you know certain types of benefits, you know there's there's money changing hands there. It's strictly regulated as it should be by the federal government, but normally what what you'll have is you know you'll have family members put on the payroll at very reasonable rates, you know recorded, you know to the T. Well, if you look at a larger foundation like the called the Clinton Foundation, called any past president's foundation, right? They can justify. Large executive compensation plans and larger payrolls and greater transportation costs and private speaking, you know, engagement fees to individuals who might be conflicted out because their organizations are so immense. Whereas, you know, let's say I have a smaller foundation that they want to put their two adult children on the payroll. They're going to have meetings with various charities to figure out which ones need to be donated to, and you know all the other administrative work, which is real work. Well, that compensation is going to be scrutinized in a manner that probably doesn't meet the level of the larger foundations because the larger foundations can say, "Well, hey, look at look at this institution we've created. You know, this is like a regular business, and we need this. And that's not to say, you know, the the big guys, you know, they're going to fall into the magnifying glass of the of the IRS. But you know, you still have to be very, very careful, and I think there's there's an inequity there. There's an inequity of you know the smaller foundation that maybe maybe they had to incur $10,000 worth of travel costs in a year, and that seems out of the norm. And maybe you know maybe some IRS agent is going to take a look at that and say, "Hmm, I wonder what's going on there. Meanwhile, you look at these larger foundations and what are their travel expenses going to be? And I think that's the overall difference between the two. And again, there's so many other, you know, politically motivated corruptions that you can see with the larger institutions. I mean, you know, and it's been all over the news. You know, the pay-to-play type situation where hey, make a donate, massive donation to my private foundation, and you know, I'll I'll have the State Department give you a favorable ruling or you know favorable favorable treatment over here. You know, meanwhile, if a smaller foundation, you know, even thinks about contracting with a business that happens to be connected to one of the directors, you know, me as the attorney is going to start saying, "Hey, you got a big problem. So it's it's it's very interesting. I do think the IRS recognizes that, and they're trying to to even the playing field. Obviously, you've seen a lot of private foundations in the news recently on both, you know, regardless of political affiliation. I think that you're going to start seeing a heck of a lot more of that.

Ron Bockstahler: I'm amazed at how many there actually are. A lot more private foundations than I thought there were.

Bill Cisar: So, if I could speak to that, the the reason why there are so many private foundations is because that is the default designation for a charitable entity. So the way it works is, you're either statutorily created as a charitable entity, meaning you know there's an enabling law, usually section I think 170 of the Internal Revenue Code. You know if you're a church or a hospital, you are designated as an exempt organization that's a public charity, and then you can apply to be a public charity if the I think it's 33% of your donations are smaller number, in in other words, you don't have one large donor making all the donations to the entity. Everything else is a private foundation, and that's why there are so many private foundations. Because you know it's very difficult to become a public charity like Red Cross or the YMCA, you know, whose funding comes in the in the form of $10 $20 $30 donations here and there, you know, and that accounts for a specific proportion that they need to meet. Or you know, a lot of people don't want to start a church. They don't want to. They're not going to start a hospital. So the private foundation has become kind of the the the main choice as a charitable entity.

Ron Bockstahler: So let's keep this on the lines of you know we're speaking to lawyers who might want to recommend this to their clients. You know what are some of the tax advantages that they might enjoy?

Bill Cisar: So for an individual who is significantly wealthy, if you have somebody who is over the federal state tax exemption, which right now that's $11 million per individual, 22 for a couple with the proper election, but it could be going down sooner rather than later. The benefit of a foundation is basically a mechanism whereby you make a charitable gift of the residue of your estate that is in excess of that federal taxation amount, right? So let's give an example in numbers to make it easier. Let's say the exemption is 20-2 million, and you pass away with 20-5 million. Well, you can gift that 3 million. To your private foundation, that brings your estate out of taxable reach for estate tax purposes. You've funded a foundation, which is you know a legacy tool and something that your family can operate moving forward, and you know work as reasonably compensated employees on obtain certain benefits, and also you know it inadvertently helps them grow their own professional networks. So I'd say that's probably the number one tax planning advantage of a private foundation. And this, I think, this goes back to what I said before. You know, I usually have to have the conversation with someone saying, "Well, you know, do you want to go with a private foundation or do you want to keep making your contributions to charity? Because you're going to have a higher deduction, 50% if you just give to charity versus 30% is your deduction against your adjusted gross income for a private foundation. And the vast majority of the time, they say, "I'll take the 20% cut in the deduction if it means I get to create something that has my name attached to it. So, you know, the the tax benefits are there, the deduction is there, which is fantastic. It's not as great as just donating off to a public charity, but I think the retain the retainment of the control is really what entices people. You know, they say, "Well, if I was going to make this gift to charity, you know, as a as a way to to to limit my gross estate upon my death, I might as well have some control over it. Makes them feel like it's still included in their estate when it's not.

Ron Bockstahler: So they could take that money and, depending on what the bylaws say, just do an investment into it and maybe donate the investment proceeds annually.

Bill Cisar: So yes, you can. So what you can do is you can have investments. Now the investments have to be vetted. You know you can't have any conflicts of interest, and you have to have what's called a conflict policy to go along with your foundation to make sure that every investment you're going to make is properly vetted. You know, you're not giving a cash infusion to a board member's company or something like that, and you do have to pay tax on the net investment income. But these are tools for appreciation growth, you know you can take that that excess money that you have over the federal tax exemption and put it into a foundation. And so long as you're giving away 5% of the total the total value of the foundation per year, you're going to meet the requirements of a private foundation, which means you have 90-5% of that pool of money available for investments, operating expenses, things like that. And I think that's also a huge driver from, you know, not necessarily a tax standpoint, but from a utility and use standpoint. People people love the fact that okay, you know I could just give 100% of this money away from charity, or I can give, you know, in the first year 95% of it to the actual foundation itself for operations, and 5% gets donated out to the charities. And there's a good there's a there's a point for that too because the more it appreciates, the more money over time you're going to be able to give to charity.

Ron Bockstahler: Quick side question: Do all foundations that have investment income have to pay taxes on

Bill Cisar: it? All foundations. So no. If you are a private operating foundation, which means you are a foundation that's created kind of like public charity to actually operate a certain charitable endeavor, soup kitchen, you know, shelter, what have you? I believe you do not. The only thing I'll say is I don't do a lot of private operating foundations. I do a lot of just regular private foundations because usually, if you're able to run kind of a an institution like that, you're getting into public charity status anyway, so we might as well go for the whole shebang. Now, it could be it's a it's a valid placeholder. You know, there is an advantage advantage to being an operating foundation, but most of the time, at least with clients that I deal with, they just go with a regular private foundation.

Ron Bockstahler: So, what are some of the limitations on the exempt organizations' activities? What can't they do?

Bill Cisar: Okay, so I mean, obviously, they can't run anything for a profit. They can't participate in political contributions. You know, be veiled as a not-for-profit for charitable purposes, and then you know support political candidates. Most of the time, I advise my my clients who are politically inclined. I say, hey, make sure that you keep your foundation as far away from this thing as possible, which which is usually very important. You have to be very strict. In your governance, so you're allowed to have related members sit on the board. That's kind of the point, you know, husband and wife, sons, daughters, friends, you know, what have you. But you have to make darn sure that their experience, personal information is all kept on record. That your meeting minutes, you know, reflect their appointments, and that they are always going to be disinterested in the foundation's activities. You know, meaning, like I said before, you don't want a director's company to partner up with the foundation in a manner that directly benefits, or maybe even possibly indirectly benefits the the board member. I think I think that's one of the biggest issues: the reasonableness of salary and fees. You know, you can't put your kid on a payroll and say, "All right, I'm going to pay you $100 an hour to go, you know, meet with with charities and and vet them. No, you have to you have to make them keep time slips, and it's got to be the going market rate for that type of work,

Ron Bockstahler: but they can be paid board positions.

Bill Cisar: Yes, yes.

Kirsten Mayfield: Can they learn all of these rules and what they need to do just from talking with you as an attorney, or are there other people they need to get involved to make sure that they stay in line with everything?

Bill Cisar: So it's that's a very interesting question. So normally, I'm the one who's kind of guiding the. I call that governance, right? There's a lot of really wonderful materials out there on the IRS's website itself. There's one specific page. It's called the life cycle of a private foundation that that goes through everything in depth, but I'm usually the one who has to synthesize that information, spell it out to the client, tell them, okay, this is how we operate. This is how we operate within the confines. I draft those limitations in the bylaws, so you know there's a record of it. One invaluable piece of the puzzle is usually a CPA who has experience doing exempt organization tax returns. You know, believe it or not, a lot of a lot of them just don't do them. That that's an important part, and and they're they really help me in measuring. I don't want to call it the risk, but I guess the temperature of the IRS's thought on certain expenses, travel expenses, you know, positions that you can you know take that are aggressive, medium conservative. So yeah, they're usually when it's dealing with operating foundations, the client calls me. They say, "Hey, can I do this? And I say, "No, you can't do this. Here's how we have to do it in the future, you know. Or, you know, my my kid met with four charities on Saturday. He spent five hours doing it. What are we doing? And I say, well, you gotta let's create a timesheet. Let's have him put down the time, make a detailed log of it, you know, and then we'll we'll withhold the tax and and and pay him for the work that he did, you know, as opposed to just writing a check out of straight out of the foundation's bank account.

Kirsten Mayfield: So, do you get like a relationship with these families that you work with? Because I'm like starting to go into like TV realm where it's like the family sitting in the room where they're like, "We messed up. We got to call the lawyer of the foundation. That kind of thing. Do you get like involved? I mean, I I assume your clients are not messing up if you're guiding them, but still, like it feels like they're part of the family, you know. It is,

Bill Cisar: and it's a very personal area of law. You know, you they they really have to trust you. You really have to trust them. You have to know the details of the family intricately. But this goes for every estate planner as well, you know, because what the intent of usually a test date or you know somebody who's writing a will or a trust or creating a family foundation, their intent is I want to provide for my family while taking into consideration all of the you know their differences and personality traits, attributes, things like that. You know, so I meet with the family and I say, you know, one of the things that we talk about initially is, okay, which one of the kids do you think is going to want to run with this? You know, Johnny might be more charitably inclined, while Joey might be more interested in focusing focusing on his career. So you know, yeah, we we we get very close. You know, you can really streamline the process, though, if you teach the family how to have an annual meeting, and that annual meeting is used for the selection of the charities they want to give to, and you you grab somebody in the family to be the secretary, or I myself can act as the secretary and record the meeting. You know, you can start having a very efficient manner of these are the char. You know, deciding these are the charities we want to select. Let's put them down in the meeting minutes. Let's transmit all of that to the lawyer for the records, and then let's have the treasurer write the checks. So, if you run this thing clean, you're not going to have. A lot of incidences where there's a big screw up, which is good, at least in my opinion. So yeah, but I I do enjoy getting close with the families.

Kirsten Mayfield: That's great.

Bill Cisar: Really, it's also nice to see what the benefits are. You know,

Ron Bockstahler: this is very interesting area of law. I'm trying to think of like okay, what what else do we need to understand, and what's what's the pitfalls? I mean, why wouldn't I provide I got enough money, you know, set up a foundation?

Bill Cisar: All right, so there are a lot of people out there, maybe high net with their net worth individuals, who want to stay under the radar? So you know you create a private foundation. You know you can make anonymous gifts, but maybe you don't want to have to file an application with the IRS and get on you know get on their radar at all. Maybe you just want to leave a significant amount of money to charity anonymously and be done with it. You know, I think that's the first pitfall would be exposure. You know, because you have to have a degree of transparency when running these things. I think the second pitfall is just the numbers themselves. A private foundation has that lower deduction rate, and some people are very math oriented and they say, you know, I think that I rather just you know not worry about my legacy, just keep the extra 20% and move on. And then you have the bad apples who you know they they run fast and loose with their foundation operations. They they get really liberal with their expenses, and you know they they end up dealing with some pretty significant penalties. I mean, you know if you if if you incorporate as a not for profit, you have to operate that way. And I you know I think that the IRS is going to start taking a deeper dive into those foundations that maybe aren't necessarily as altruistic as they should be, but I think those are the most glaring pitfalls that you have. You know, the other thing is is time. A lot of times we create these entities when people are older, and they say, "Oh, sure, I can devote 10 hours a week to this thing. Well, after two years, they look at you and they say, "I'm tired, and I just want to spend time with my grandkids, you know. So it does take a very motivated, not only individual but family to keep the worth of this thing. Because again, we're trying to appreciate it. You know, we're trying to appreciate it in reputation. We're trying to appreciate the actual assets of the foundation and the the family members' exposure. So if if you're not going to have the endurance for running it, that's going to be a problem. And I have seen one or two of these things, you know, fizzle out because the family was gung ho for the first two years and then they, you know, backed off.

Ron Bockstahler: Yeah, Bill, that brings up a good point. How hard is it to dissolve a foundation? I guess is the first point. And the other instances where someone will create a foundation for a limited amount of time. Say, I want to spend all this money in 10 years, kind of like the guy that had a billion dollars that wanted to, you know, die broke.

Bill Cisar: Yeah,

Ron Bockstahler: I believe he successfully is there.

Bill Cisar: So you can you can wind up a private foundation like you would a corporation. Now, in your articles of incorporation for a exempt entity, a private foundation, you have specific statutory language, basically promising, you know, that that the assets won't revert back to, you know, the original donor. That they'll be used to close the corporation and, you know, continue on fulfilling the charitable purpose. So far as limited duration, none of these entities have to continue on in perpetuity, which is a you know that's also a good thing because sometimes you know maybe plans change, maybe a different family member has their own foundation and they rather focus on that. You have to file a final return, you know. So you're going to have to work with your CPA to, you know, tie out the loose ends and and the left and right columns of the accounting sheet to to make sure that every dime is going to be accounted for. It's not like some of the super PACs where a lot of the money just reverted back to the treasurer, which isn't good. You know that that money needs to be accounted for and used for its charitable purpose. But you know, if somebody maybe has buyer's remorse about a private foundation, my position always is, you know, don't operate it right now. Maybe don't necessarily fund it. Keep making the 5% distribution. Pay the the limited money you have for the tax return, you know, have a small annual meeting and just keep it on the back burner to see if maybe you want to use it later on, because you never know if you're going to have an adult shop except one day and says, "I want to help the world, you know, "I want to, I want to, and this is the perfect, you know, this is the perfect segue. Into that goal,

Ron Bockstahler: I guess you. I'm assuming you work with estate planning attorneys, accounting firms. These are the people that are coming across these high net worth individuals. Is this? Am I missing anyone, or is that correct?

Bill Cisar: Yeah, that's that's that's correct. So I I usually do the estate planning myself in conjunction with the foundation formation. I love talking shop with other estate planners, though, because you know there's always something new to learn, and it's always changing, which which is great. CPAs as well are are just integral to this type of thing because they're the ones who really know the down and dirty about running a proper payroll and how you know how are we going to characterize the expenses? What line are we putting these things on the return? And you know what's going to get pushed through and what's what's going to be a red flag? What's going to be a problem? But you know another you know we work with with private bankers. You know we we work with wealth advisors. You know, a lot of times, you know, I I have to have a conversation with the wealth advisor and say, hey, you know, the client wants to start a private foundation. I think you should have a conversation with him about a donor advised fund first, just so they know what the distinctions are in the deductions, and they can make a fully informed decision.

Ron Bockstahler: Let me stop you right there. What is a donor advised fund?

Bill Cisar: So, a donor advised fund is an account at a bank that you. It's basically a pool of that you can make all of your charitable donations to, and then advise where that money owes. So, it's it's an organized, more organized method of charitable giving that also carries that 50% deduction.

Ron Bockstahler: That's kind of like you see, like Hendricks County Foundation. You can you can donate your money to a certain large foundation and say, "I want it to go to certain areas. Is that kind of a donor advised fund?

Bill Cisar: Yes, that's right. Okay, and they're usually run by larger financial institutions who, you know, like always take their fees and but do they do a great job in appreciating the assets and and everything else that they're supposed to do. And you know, a lot of times I really do tell clients maybe that's the best that's the best route for you based upon what you want to do. Maybe they don't have any kids, nobody's going to carry this thing on in the future. It makes sense for them,

Ron Bockstahler: right? Interesting. So let's jump into a couple other areas real quick. We've got a lot of time left, but talk to me about technology that you're seeing. You're as a younger attorney that you're using, maybe that's really changing the practice of law.

Bill Cisar: I can name one that relates directly to private foundations in 2020, the IRS did away with the requirement to generate a paper application and mail it in. So now you file your 1023 application online at Pay.gov under the Forms tab. Now you still have to generate all of the ancillary documents, the bylaws, things like that, but that's that's a huge, huge win for people like me who used to get and and the client because it cuts down on costs. You used to get bogged down in fluxing the paper, making sure it's just right, you know, making the professional copies, things like that. And I think you're seeing more of that type of streamlining everywhere. Obviously, Zoom, you know, is in the same vein. You can do three or four court appearances in one day on Zoom at less of a cost to the client when you know you used to have to drive out to the various courthouses. A lot of this has been COVID-driven, and a lot of it is a major silver lining.

Ron Bockstahler: So, Bill, has the IRS done away with wet signatures?

Bill Cisar: So, that's also a great question. Yes and no. So, for instance, when you're applying for an employer identification number, you know, you self-certify by typing in. When I generate an application, I have the corporate documents and I have the application itself. I believe on the portal, when you file the application, that's a type signature certified by you know the president. But all of the minutes and other documents, corporate documents that need to be signed, I usually prefer to have wet signatures, which I immediately, you know, scan on my iPhone app and put up into this, you know, into the cloud for for for storage. That's another thing too. Is you know, the less paperite that we're having to deal with is is better for the practice of law and better for the environment.

Ron Bockstahler: So let's kind of round this thing out. The final question we like to ask guests are: What's the one thing in the business of law that you would like to see changed going forward?

Bill Cisar: I would like to see attorney. Attorney public reputation improve. You know, I I think that there are a lot of people who maybe have the wrong idea about what the vast majority of attorneys are. You know, meaning we're not all bulldogs. We're not all sitting in an office. You know, creating trumped up hours. You know, we're we're here as you know counselors in business, counselors in stressful times in life, trying to help in in our individual niches. So I I would really like to see more outreach between lawyers and you know the middle and lower classes, so people can be informed of their rights and understand that hey, I can trust this person. Yeah, he provides a service for money, but they actually do want to help me. And the lawyers have to you know do their part in that too. We've got to we've got to find a way to be more client oriented. And I know that we are you know we work late hours for the client. You know, but really keep in mind sort of the the the sentiment and their emotions and the stress that they're under, and do a better job as acting as counselors as opposed to just you know random suits who are who who are there to draft the documents and and send it out. You know, I think that's going to go a long way, and I think you know, lawyers won't have to be worried about how are they going to get paid if they can have a more positive relationship with you know the people that they're servicing, just like in the restaurant industry. What and and the retail industry, the customer is always right.

Ron Bockstahler: That makes a lot of sense. I I see that there's I guess I ask you: Are you seeing more foundations like this get started as we're seeing more of the the country's wealth move up to the top? I don't say two 5% of the population.

Bill Cisar: I'd say in the last two and a half decades, absolutely, these things have been springing up like crazy, especially with you know high profile individuals. You know, you're talking ath. You know, athletes, celebrities, things like that. Everybody's got a foundation in that realm, and I think you're seeing it pick up a heck of a lot more. You know, in the upper middle to you know slightly more wealthy area as well. I think people are grabbing a hold of these things and saying, "I want to create a legacy. I want to create my own entity, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a for-profit business that I'm going to run. You know, and that's interesting too because private foundations and these charitable entities have also had increased scrutiny from the IRS, so they've become more popular, but they've also become, you know, more reviewed by the federal government.

Ron Bockstahler: So I guess the next follow-up question that would be: Are you seeing, or does this help the equity distribution of wealth in this country, or is it hurt? Oh man,

Bill Cisar: that's a mouthful. I, yes, yes. In some instances, it's absolutely fantastic for, because you're taking individuals who maybe might not have been charitably minded and getting their children to into that mindset of giving back at an early age. Like I said, you're always going to have you're always going to have bad apples, and you're always going to have disparity between the larger institutions and the smaller institutions, and I think that's not necessarily necessarily a reflection on foundation governance and legislation. That's just you know that's what happens when you've got somewhat of an oligarchy in a country where you've got wealth inequality and wage you know, no wage inflation, but inflation and everything else. So it's kind of like a greater trend that's influencing how foundations are run. You know, it's it's the same reason why large companies, you know, could negotiate their their leases during COVID. You know, because they actually had the standing of the firepower to to stand up to their landlords and small businesses just got creamed,

Ron Bockstahler: right? Okay, that leads. I promise my final question is, you know, I I think with the change in administration, there's a good opportunity that a good chance we'll see a change in the tax exemption, the estate tax from what 11 million to potentially 1 million. Would you would you say that that would make more room for other lawyers to recommend to their clients to consider forming a small foundation?

Bill Cisar: Absolutely, and also for those lawyers to recommend to their clients to start gifting now, so they can lock in the current federal exemption.

Ron Bockstahler: Okay, interesting. Well, Bill, thanks for joining us. Best way for our listeners to contact you when they want to learn more about helping their clients set up a private foundation.

Bill Cisar: So you can call or email. Email is Caesar C I S A R law L A W at outlook dot. And my phone number is 630-632-5314

Ron Bockstahler: Excellent, Bill. Thanks so much for joining us on the show today. It's been great learning a little bit more about setting a foundation, and you know personally, maybe it's something to look at down the road with all the kids I got running around the house. Right. Thanks for joining us, Dave. You've been listening to the 1958 lawyer, we appreciate you listening to us.

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