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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: neolib who wrote (210133)	12/8/2006 12:36:14 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

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. I commend you for your generosity. Though given your apparent contempt for charitable giving, you must feel bad about your giving. You shouldn't imo. Why do you give given your cynical attitude? What do you do wrt to charitable giving? I donate a substantially smaller percentage of my income. Below 10% - let's leave it at that. What data do you have? I have the same sort of anecdotal information you do - knowledge of what I, friends, coworkers, relatives, and people for whom I've done taxes do. And the knowledge that this is only part of the picture - donated time and services are missing from any $ count. I question whether what either of us have is data - I used the term anecdotal information. 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? Re. #1 I know of very few rich hunters who give their trophies to a museum for a writeoff - I think thats pretty rare. Re. #2 Do you know that thrift stores (there is one run by Northwest Area Ministries near me) really give only some of their sales to charity? Are the churches in Northwest Area Ministries really a bunch of scam artists? Sorry I don't believe they're making a profit off their thrift store. Re #3 - I've had my kids in Christian schools and never encountered that. We paid our own tuition. No help from anyone. The churches did have a fund to pay for tuition for needy students but they weren't church members - they were minorities and really were needy. Re. #4 - I don't have personal experience with this but I've known people who did go to Panama and elsewhere in the area - they didn't go to resorts but to poor places and it wasn't a vacation but work. I don't know exactly what they did - this was years ago but I know it was work.