I know his background, no argument with that.
I think that's just another diatribe to put down the religious charitable giving. (Okay that's four now jtt. )
For the first 15 years of my working career, I gave 10-15% of my income to charity, 95% of it religious charities. I now give 15-20% of my income to charity, 95% of it non-religious. I'm thus in a category who gives 10x what Brooks reports as the mean for such giving. I have many friends who fall in the same range. I also do the tax returns for two charities, so I understand the tax side in the USA. So I at least have some direct data for my statements.
What do you do wrt to charitable giving? What data do you have?
I do. And why wouldn't it be charity?
What have you looked at carefully? What insights can you share based on your examination of data? I am actually interested. As to why I might not consider it charity, see below.
Wow. Where is the scandal in giving to charity?
1) A rich hunter goes to Africa, pays $30K for a hunting trip complete with rare trophy, then donates the head to a museum in the USA, and writes the trip off as a "charitable" donation. Result: Hobby results in substantial tax benefit, and it all is listed as charitable giving.
2) A person of more modest means donates a used item to a charitable thrift store, claims a $500 contribution, netting $150 off his tax bill. The charity sells the item for $50, and after expenses in the thrift store, forwards $10 of net proceeds to the charities cause. Result: $150 from the government produced $10 for the charity. Donating worn out cars to charity can produce numbers, which would make the above outrageous results blush in modesty.
3) Private education is not tax deductible in the USA. A church runs a private school, charging $5K/yr in tuition. The church sets up an offering fund so that all "needy" students of its members can afford the tuition. All church members with kids in school (and admittedly some generous souls without kids in school) contribute to the fund via tax deductible offerings, which are then used to pay 100% of the tuition of all members kids. Result: Tax deductible private education, classified as charitable giving no less!
4) Church youth groups with parents go on a two-week "mission" trip to the tropics to build a school or church building. All the trip expenses are funded by the church through tax deductible charitable giving, generally with those going paying 90+% of the cost. They get a two-week working vacation in the tropics, with some fraction of site seeing, all classified as tax deductible charitable giving.
I'd call the above examples scam city, but perhaps you can put a different view on it?
I will note, that one of the leading proponents of clamping down on such rampant nonsense is a Republican Senator. I wish him well. His last attempt didn't actually achieve a whole lot. On the car scam front, it basically clobbered some charities while helping others. No affect on the donor, unless the donor is particularly stupid.
Brooks has hurt the self-esteem of people who think they are the elite of our society. So there are going to be claws drawn for sure. Just like you're seeing on this thread.
Brook's scholarship will stand or fall on its merits. I look forward to reading his book to see how well he actually did. Given the data I have, I don't think terribly well. |
