Posted on 12/04/2017 4:48:03 AM PST by lightman
Edited on 12/04/2017 10:35:20 AM PST by Jim Robinson. [history]
bump
Taxation has been used, historically, BOTH to raise revenue and to encourage certain behaviors while discouraging other behaviors.
Exhibit #1: The “sin taxes” levied on alcohol and tobacco.
With that in mind: Is charitable giving a behavior which government should encourage? From a simple economic standpoint the answer should be “yes”, because in many cases the charities provide services which would otherwise be delivered through government agencies (and government employee unions).
Bottom line: It would be better policy to remove charitable giving from the Standard Deduction, even if that would mean dropping the SD to say, $11K individual/$22K filing jointly.
Bottom line is to stay away from allowing the government to use the tax system (or any other government system) for social engineering.
I hear you.
Social engineering has happened, is happening now, and will continue to happen.
So shouldn’t some of that engineering be used to incentivize folks to give to those who can do a better job of delivering services than the government?
Which specific federal social engineering project are you in favor of maintaining?
There fixed it.
I hate the United Way. Each year they sent our company HR around demanding we give to those b@st@rds with an insinuation of your name making a list of the non-giving if you failed to help the company reach their 100% giving goal.
I have more than one job, one is a 1099 that doesn’t cover the expenses I deduct, and the other one is W-2, 100 percent of the extra money from the 1099 will now go to the government.
If Trump would have ran on letting a bunch of Goldman Sachs schmucks strip away all itemized deductions from the middle class but leave them in place for corporations, he would have NEVER WON.
There is an ulterior motive here, and that is to remove the ability of the W-2 Wage Slaves to mitigate their tax exposure through deductions that have been in place for DECADES.
Good luck with your small tax decrease, because it will soon be jacked up by a rate increase, which they will keep raising in order to fund Social security and their ever expanding spending.
This is the biggest bait and switch swindle in history, these guys Mnuchin and Cohn make Gruber look like an amateur.
As soon as I’m done paying for my last kid to finish college I am bugging out, the GOP will never have a majority again and this is the beginning of the end.
Getting rid of special deductions is a good thing. I wish they’d have eliminated all of them and lowered the rate more. Ps deductions have been dropping since the 60s. You use to be able to deduct unlimited losses and debt interest as wel, for example.
I think he (Lightman) is in favor of keeping an incentive to donate to charities. This GOPe “picking winners & losers” among the middle class is bogus, either just reduce the tax rate/tables for everyone and be done with it, or eliminate all deductions/credits (essentially a flat tax) and reduce the tax rates...(and cut spending to match).
The main problem with a flat tax is getting it to pass the house and senate. Probably won’t happen in our lifetimes unless we can replace enough rinos and democrats to give conservatives a 60% majority. They couldn’t even agree to reduce the number of brackets this time around. Nor could they agree to repeal or even replace Obamacare even though they all said they would. McCain, Collins, Murkowski, McConnell, Ryan and a whole passel of others need to be Corked, Flaked or Cantorized.
The tax plan should allow UNLIMITED deduction for charitable contributions (up from 1/2 of one’s income). What a travesty!
And that should be PERMANENTLY divorced from the "Standard Deduction".
From what I’ve read, they didn’t remove the charitable contributions deduction.
Then what is this 95% ineligibility? More fake news?
Yep, still there, (charitable contribution deduction) but at a vastly reduced rate. What I am really watching is the medical expense deduction (Dad went into skilling nursing this year at $8700.+/mo.)...it is eliminated under the House tax bill and actually expanded under the Senate bill...decided in conference committee I guess.
I personally believe that ANY tax plan, whatever the rates, should have UNLIMITED charitable deduction and 1/2 SALT (1/2 income + 1/2 sales + 1/2 property, not either-or) to encourage giving and to recognize state sovereignty and localism without encouraging rampant big government on those levels.
Doubling the “standard” deduction will reduce the number of families eligible to deduct their charitable contributions by about 95% (their #, but I would think that is about right).
Is this guy calling all those Liberal New Yorkers cheap bastards who only donate to a write off?
Is this guy calling all those Liberal New Yorkers cheap bastards who only donate to a write off?
Oops:
Is this guy calling all those Liberal New Yorkers cheap bastards who only donate to GET a write off?
I think those are democrat talking points. A lot of the liberal publishers/talking heads are pushing it. The real claim is that the new standard deduction makes it unnecessary for the vast majority of tax-filers to itemize, so reduces the tax incentive to donate. The liberal non-profits are in a panic. They’re afraid this will hurt their scams.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.