Where are all the charitable bequests? | csmonitor.com

Where are all the charitable bequests? | csmonitor.com:

"Only 8 percent of Americans have named a charity in their wills, according to a survey released earlier this year from Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy. That's in spite of the fact that Americans are a generous lot: Two out of every 3 have given to charity in recent years, according to the same survey.

Charitable bequests are also becoming more rare. From 1998 to 2006, the estimated yearly number of people who left money to charity has dropped from 17,587 to 9,522, according to Internal Revenue Service data. Over that period, fewer estates became subject to federal tax as the threshold for taxable estates rose from $625,000 in 1998 to $2 million in 2006."