Truly serious tax “reform” should include permanently preserving the deduction for charitable contributions and making it available to ALL taxpayers by removing it from the insidious “Standard Deduction”.
For most taxpayers there this is no tax incentive to give.
Why bother if the IRS is crediting you as though you had given $12,000.00?
Keep in mind: Many charities provide services which reduce the need for government spending. They can deliver aid with lower overhead than the public sector.
“Tax savings” at its best.
I see you’re rounding up the anti-tax-reform crew for this (“oh noeee ... charities will suffer”) latest meme & talking point in the jihad opposing the tax legislation.
problem is many things are registered as “charities” while they really are just businesses getting tax free status. also mosques and all sorts of potential hate america organizations can betas deductible charities - so it’s not so easy as you wrote.
The amount that reflects a true tax savings with “standard deduction” is almost a joke. The loss of SALT deduction will hurt some but I don’t see any significant change in people’s contributions to charity. Christians especially will still gift out of love.
What I love about non-deductible giving is that you can give CASH and make sure the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.
Frankly, I’d like to see ALL deductions removed. Every one.
And the tax rate lowered.
True -it should be part of the AGI calculation instead of throwing into the standard/itemizing bin.
If people are only giving to some charity for the tax deduction, then in my book they are not truly committed to the charity. I give to over a dozen of charities, do not itemize deductions, and am far from wealthy.
What you should be advocating is much lower taxes, so folks naturally have more money to spend, on charities or whatever.
My preference is MUCH lower taxes, flat and universal with zero social and economic engineering, with ZERO deductions, exemptions, exclusions or credits - just a simple flat tax everyone owes and pays.