Posted on 10/15/2017 4:46:19 AM PDT by Sir Napsalot
A new Chronicle of Philanthropy report says that America is “breaking the charity habit.” The share of American households donating to nonprofits has declined from about 30 percent in the years 2000 to 2006 to just 24 percent in 2015. These numbers are taken from IRS data and include only those filers who itemized their charitable deductions, but Chronicle editors suggest that a worrying trend has emerged: less philanthropic spending among Americans.
And that makes President Trump’s tax proposals even more concerning, they say. The president’s plan would “roughly double the standard deduction, meaning millions fewer taxpayers would itemize their tax returns . . . [which] could reduce charitable giving by $13 billion,” according to an analysis by the Independent Sector, a trade association for charitable foundations and their supporters. “The standard deduction increase will be a disguised assault on charitable giving in the name of tax simplification,” Tim Delaney, CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits, told CNBC.
Yet while liberals tend to believe that changes to the tax code determine how generous Americans are, the crucial factor is disposable income. After all, charitable contributions have held steady at about 2 percent of GDP for at least four decades, regardless of whether the top tax rate was 70 percent or 28 percent. When the rate was higher, the value of the charitable deduction would have been higher, but that didn’t seem to influence overall giving. Giving USA data show that in 2014 and 2015, these contributions amounted to 2.1 percent of GDP—just above the 40-year average of 1.9 percent.
The total sums given to charity depend far more on the level of economic growth—that is, the size of GDP—which is why overall giving has continued to increase, even as its percentage of GDP remained the same. .....
(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...
First of all, liberals don't have faith in private properties and personal possessions.
They believe all charities should come from the gubmint. The more they confiscate, the more THE POWER THAT BE can do good.
Copy and paste from the comment section at source -
Susan Allen Hylton said:
“The decline in charitable giving correlates nicely with decline in church attendance. Tax policy did not cause it and will hardly affect it. ......”
A pretty good insight.
#1. America has no poor. Capitalism fixed that many years back. #2. I gave up most charitable giving when I realized .07 cents out of my money went to the intended target and the rest to salaries ,perks, etc. I only give to Hillsdale College now.
Just not a valid insight. All forms of social conscience decline under autocratic government. To be clear the SJW movement is not about conscience. It is about government authority, actually the precise opposite of social conscience. Under Trump’s emphasis on strengthening private sector in all aspects there will be a corresponding rise in philanthropy as well as church going.
The crisis of conscience comes precisely from government takeover of eleemocynary enterprise. Where government becomes the largest source of funding for providing a safety net for the impoverished not only do the number of people in poverty rise but concern in the private sector declines. When this reality is coupled with the failure of bureaucracy to eliminate or reduce the target of its largess it becomes manifestly obvious that government is precisely the opposite of the answer to poverty.
Those who pay taxes through the easy form give with the right hand and the left doesn’t know about it. :)
Therefore, they are not representative of the population at large, but are a technically biased sample.
but Chronicle editors suggest that a worrying trend has emerged: less philanthropic spending among Americans.
"Chronicle editors suggest..."
Identifying trends based on data known to be biased is, we may say, unhelpful. It is possible that Americans in general are less generous than in the past, but this data doesn't contribute much information.
Yep and besides that
Why give a Breast Cancer charity $ when it
gets redirected to Planned Abortionhood?
Why give a church $ when it gets redirected
to shielding and importing Illegals? Or a mosque
redirecting it to Allah knows what nefarious purpose?
Too many United Ways and Covenant Houses have
become slush funds
Frankly the only organizations I’ve seen lately doing
what they should are the Salvation Army the Shriners and St Jude
but I’m ready to hear a horror story about them too
Can you kindly explain that? Is that a typical outlay in a church?
A new Chronicle of Philanthropy report says that America is “breaking the charity habit.” The share of American households donating to nonprofits has declined from about 30 percent in the years 2000 to 2006 to just 24 percent in 2015. These numbers are taken from IRS data and include only those filers who itemized their charitable deductions, but Chronicle editors suggest that a worrying trend has emerged: less philanthropic spending among Americans.
1) Trumps tax plan to remove charitable deductions and increase the standard deductions will affect charitable contributions.
2) I think that is good, it will reduce contributions to left promotion and is a good test of Christian giving. A lot of non sense will go away......................
I don’t consider church giving as charity. Donations to church is for maintenance, heat, sewage, water and other incidental expenses such as the priest/ parsons living expenses. The bookkeepers, accountants, printers, hymnal salemesn, etc. etc. UNLESS you are talking about Tammi Faye, Joel Osteen, Oral Roberts, etc, etc. then YES .07 or LESS. Why?
If people pay less in taxes, then they have more disposable income. More disposable income could lead to more charitable giving, regardless of whether someone gets a tax benefit.
I give to a few charities. I take the tax deduction as allowed by law. But I would give anyway even if I didn’t itemize and get a tax deduction.
Do big numbers of people who give to charity do so only because of the tax deduction?
When so many "nonprofits" pay outrageous CEO salaries and give mere pennies on the dollar to the actual needy, is it any wonder?
I don't know. If you don't itemize deductions (about 60% of filers), it wouldn't make any difference.
I don't limit giving only to organizations with tax-deductible status.
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