Law Commons^™

"I'D Gladly Pay You Tuesday For A [Tax Deduction] Today": Donor-Advised Funds And The Deferral Of Charity, Samuel D. Brunson

Faculty Publications & Other Works

In recent years, donor-advised funds have become an increasingly popular vehicle for charitable giving. In part, their popularity can be traced to a disconnect in the law: donor-advised funds look in many ways like private foundations, but the tax law treats them as public charities. This disconnect is advantageous to donors. Because Congress was worried about wealthy individuals' ability to take advantage of the control they can exercise over private foundations, it imposed a series of additional tax rules on private foundations. These rules, among other things, limit the deductibility of donations to private foundations, require that private foundations make …

Paying For Gun Violence, Samuel D. Brunson

Faculty Publications & Other Works

Gun violence is an outsized problem in the United States. Between a culture that allows for relatively unconstrained firearm ownership and a constitutional provision that ensures that ownership will continue to be relatively unchecked, it has proven virtually impossible for politicians to address the problem of gun violence. And yet, gun violence costs the United States tens of billions of dollars or more annually. These tens of billions of dollars are negative externalities — costs that gun owners do not bear themselves, and thus that are imposed on the victims of violence and on taxpayers generally.

What can we do …

Dear I.R.S., It Is Time To Enforce The Campaigning Prohibition. Even Against Churches, Samuel Brunson

Faculty Publications & Other Works

In 1954, Congress prohibited tax-exempt public charities, including churches, from endorsing or opposing candidates for office. To the extent a tax-exempt public charity violated this prohibition, it would no longer qualify as tax-exempt, and the IRS was to revoke its exemption.

While simple in theory, in practice, the IRS rarely penalizes churches that violate the campaigning prohibition and virtually never revokes a church's tax exemption. And, because no taxpayer has standing to challenge the IRS's inaction, the IRS has no external imperative to revoke the exemptions of churches that do campaign on behalf of or against candidates for office.

This …