Giving Stories
Gifting Property Makes Unitrust Possible
September 9th, 2008
Katherine “Chick” Shrader Stauffer ’48 originally didn’t want to attend Carleton. (She came solely because her older sister, Louise Shrader Cannon ’41, had attended the College.) But once on campus, Chick says, “I was very happy. I got a good education and made good friends.” Those friends included her husband, James Stauffer ’48, with whom she raised five children.
The couple settled near Rice Lake, Wisconsin, where Jim taught biological sciences at a branch campus of the University of Wisconsin. Chick still lives on North Shore Bear Lake in Haugen, Wis., where she enjoys a quiet life in the country. Prior to Jim’s death, the couple used a portion of the farmland they inherited from Chick’s family to fund a unitrust with Carleton. The unitrust is paying income to Chick during her lifetime. After her death, half of the unitrust’s remainder will benefit Carleton, with the other half being distributed among 11 additional charities the Stauffers support.
“Jim and I met at Carleton. We had a good life, and we wouldn’t have had that without the education we received," she says. "Also, we had a general interest in education, and among the schools we considered for this gift, Carleton was the only one set up to work with us.”
The Stauffers paid no capital gains tax at the time the unitrust was established, and the unitrust pays Chick an annual income. “As the price of the land went up, we realized the capital gains tax would have been outrageous,” Chick says. “The tax break we received was good, and the income has kept me going.”
real estate, property, unitrust