A hospice received £1.75 million in donations from wills and legacies in just one year, according to recently published accounts.
The 18-bed Marlets Hospice in Hove, Sussex costs £9,000 a day to run and admitted 275 patients for an average of 17 days each.
About 84% of the patients seen by the hospice had cancer while others had conditions such as motor neurone disease, heart failure and chronic respiratory disease.
The charity’s lottery raised £432,413 last year while its shops and trading arm raised £478,735.
Martlets Care, a private company which cares for people in their own homes and donates its profits to the hospice, generated £127,930.
According to the Society of Will Writers, in the year 2014 (the most recently obtainable figures) gifts made to charities by wills generated an income of £2.2 billion for UK charities.
“Aside from being a great way to continue to support a charity that you have supported throughout your life or whose cause you feel strongly about, leaving a portion of your estate to charity can help reduce your IHT [inheritance tax] bill.
“Assets gifted to charity in your will, will not count towards the total value of your estate for IHT purposes, so leaving a gift to charity can reduce the amount of IHT payable on your estate or even eliminate IHT altogether if the gift places the value of your estate below your Nil Rate Band (the IHT threshold, currently £325,000).
“Furthermore, if you leave 10% or more of the net value of your estate to charity your estate may be eligible to pay a reduced rate for IHT of 36% on some assets (rather than 40%).”
