Obama's Threat to Charities and Universities: His Budget and Taxes

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One thing that always bothered me concerning tax deductions for charitable organizations -
The ability of Foundations, Charitable Trust, and Bill's Presidential Library & Global Slush Fund, to collect huge sums of money, invest it tax-free, and have to distribute only a minuscule of annual investment returns.
They can pay themselves and family members hundreds of thousands or millions of $$'s to manage, direct, or sit on the board.
Pay for travel and expenses to philanthropic investment seminars all over the world.
Buy houses around the world as investment properties
(Don Imus's Charitable Ranch for Children in New Mexico, which he flies out to from NY with his family on private jet on Holidays just to check up on things. The guest children only visit the ranch for a couple of weeks in the summer.)
Granted, most Foundations and Trust do wonderful things, but to become a personal family tax-exempt hedge fund is an abuse to the rest of those citizens who pay taxes.

Brad of AZ 11:57PM March 02, 2009

Conservatives take care of the poor, liberals are scrooges that pay the poor lip-service. That's why Biden and Gore got caught giving little and nothing to charity.
Obama's the same brand. He will rob the poor box of churches and charities so that he can pay off his socialist pals, his bureaucrat tax cheat friends, his 'boy-friends and girl-friends' in the news media, the abortionists at Planned Parenthood, and his racist friends...and he'll keep doing it...until "white is right."

Chris of MD 4:37PM March 02, 2009

If you voted for him you deserve what you get. When all a person want's to talk about is change but want say what the change is common since says stay away from it. Any fool knows when you stop being able to deduct from taxes for chairtable giving that it will do severe damage to the country. But there again why should the government be able to take from one family that works to get ahead in life and give it to someone else that don't try.

sg110895 of AL 11:21AM March 02, 2009

Bill and Maynard, your math is incorrect on both counts. The difference between 33% and 28% is 5% not 0.5%. If your number of $160B in charitable contributions by those taxed in the highest bracket is correct the difference is $8B in lost tax deductions. But it gets even worse. Once they let the Bush tax cuts run out the bracket will be 39.6(?) percent. 39.6 - 28 = 11.6% owed to the IRS or $18,560,000,000 in increased taxation. Since the wealthy by nature are pretty savvy with their money I would expect them to reduce their contributions accordingly to offset the extra tax..

sawdustking of IA 3:24PM March 01, 2009

One major benefit of tax incentives of charitable giving is the ability to follow, or track, the flow of money. If incentives are removed then it will decrease funding of mainstream organizations while not impacting organizations at the extremes. This would make it even tougher to detect and track extremist activity. If we need to get more out of the top earners with a tax increase then it should be an increase in percentage.

bbFl of FL 8:52AM March 01, 2009

I work for a non-profit foundation that gives to charities. We investigate their books and services to make sure they are spending the money wisely. The 10% one person claims goes to the charities is only appropriate figure for some telephone solicitors. Most non-profits are not unionized with a wage scale that government organizations have, which would divert funding from those in need. I can guarantee that the majority of large donations come from individuals who do care. They support the hospitals, homeless, arts and numerous other causes. These are the 'rich' that are spoken of so disparagingly. There is also a large number of smaller donations but they alone can not build a hospital or homeless shelter. It is also a known fact that conservatives give more than liberals although liberals claim they care more than anyone else. But for many, the tax break for giving is important. If they do not get it, then it goes to the government. There is a non-profit here in California that was given a $2 million dollar state grant for a self help group. The board and organization were totally dysfunctional and had only raised $4000 the year before. Did they have a friend in the government? I do not know, but what I do know is that people support those in need and can help in a much more informed manner than the state and federal governments which do not have the checks that local organizations do. Many of the commentators on this site obviously have no knowledge of non-profits and seem to be speaking with biter hearts.

California Mom of CA 5:55PM February 28, 2009

You may as well say it..our great president has decided to eliminate charities and will from now on decide who is worthy of receiving charity..maybe there is a secret agenda to eliminate faith-based charities prior to his run for re-election.
Can you see it? Can you see the end of them all? No more Red Cross, no more church, no more anything that is good. Say a special thank you to the annointed one who is going to take so much from you and give so little.

J Junker of AL 4:58PM February 28, 2009

MaynardGK - why not use the real data instead of your ridiculous example. Charitable giving last year by individuals totaled $200 billion. (Source: IRS). Of that total, $160 billion was given by individuals with adjusted gross income over $250,000. Applying your 0.5% rate, that's an impact of $800 million dollars. A whole lot more than your ridiculous $50.

Bill of NJ 3:00PM February 28, 2009

As I read the report, charitable deduction aaplies on any income, ,only with benefit limited to 28%. So someone in the 33% tax bracket makes a $1000 contribution, $280 of that
is made up in tax deduction instead of $330. So $50, 0.5%, is the difference.
The poor slob who is only taxed at 28% on his final $10,000 will see no difference.

MaynardGK of CA 2:41PM February 28, 2009

Michael wrote: "In the 1830s Alexis de Tocqueville identified as one of this country's great strengths Americans' propensity to form voluntary associations. It remains one of America's great strengths today, one which distinguishes us from every other nation."
Actually, this is more specific to the English speaking nations (Canada, UK, NZ, and Australia) and one of the main factors that make them different from all other countries.

Peter Rice of FL 12:06PM February 28, 2009