You can’t take it with you, and Iowa communities are trying to give you a place to leave your worldly wealth when you die. Mark Edelman, a researcher with the Comunity Vitality Center at at Iowa State University , says rural Iowa counties have increasingly found the money from estate’s moving to people out of the local communities when their residents die. Edelman says there’s a potential for those counties to lose a lot. He says they compiled all the information from the Iowa court information system, reviewing all the data from each county, and found there’s nearly five billion dollars that’s passed on in Iowa each year. Edelman is working with the counties and communities to try and keep some of that wealth at home.He says one of the potential elements for continuing to revitalize the community is to provide mechanisms like a foundation to give a place for people who wish to do so to reinvest in their hometown communities. He says there are also many people who may live out-of-state, but want to contribute to their hometown when they die. Edelman says there’s a range of wealth in Iowa’s 99 counties.He says Polk County has the largest annual transfer at 488-million, with Clarke county the lowest at nine million. Edelman says people in small rural communities can’t assume that all the wealth is in the metro counties. He cites the example of the largest estate transfer of 70 millions dollars. He says it did not occur in a metropolitan county, and he says they’ve learned from talking with people through the state that, “you often times don’t know the millionaire next door.” Edelman says those millionaires are often looking for a way to help their communities, but are never contacted. You can see the numbers on your county at:www.cvcia.org.
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