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Too Close To Home: Limiting The Organizations Subsidized By The Charitable Deduction To Those In Economic Need, Shannon Weeks Mccormack
Too Close To Home: Limiting The Organizations Subsidized By The Charitable Deduction To Those In Economic Need, Shannon Weeks Mccormack
Articles
The charitable deduction allows taxpayers to deduct amounts donated to organizations pursuing statutorily designated purposes from their otherwise taxable income. By lowering the after-tax cost of giving and encouraging taxpayers to donate more than they otherwise would, the charitable deduction subsidizes a broad variety of organizations. Some of these organizations provide widespread societal benefits, while others provide narrower benefits that remain closer to the taxpayer-donor’s home. To evaluate these current laws, this Article focuses on efficiency criteria, which limit subsidized organizations to those with donor support that does not cover the costs needed to optimally provide goods and services. Existing …
Taking The Good With The Bad: Recognizing The Negative Externalities Created By Charities And Their Implications For The Charitable Deduction, Shannon Weeks Mccormack
Taking The Good With The Bad: Recognizing The Negative Externalities Created By Charities And Their Implications For The Charitable Deduction, Shannon Weeks Mccormack
Articles
The tax code allows taxpayers to deduct amounts donated to an extremely broad variety of organizations deemed to create societal benefits — that is, positive externalities. But many organizations that may receive tax-deductible contributions also cause harms. Both the tax code and subsidy theory, one of the most utilized scholarly theories developed to analyze the deduction from an economic and morally neutral perspective, fail to properly account for these negative externalities. In order to do so, one needs to look beyond the economic models utilized by subsidy theorists. For instance, there should be some limit to the types of harms …