Law Commons^™

The Dual Subsidy Theory Of Charitable Deductions, Ilan Benshalom

Indiana Law Journal

Americans contribute billions of dollars to charities on an annual basis. Charitable contributions not only represent American generosity, they also represent a form of giving that provides donors with tax relief The current literature on charitable contributions suggests that this relief plays an important role not only in decentralizing the provision of public goods, but also in helping the nonprofit sector provide public goods more efficiently than government spending. Even if these claims were indisputable, they are insufficient to justify the current scheme's antidemocratic function. This Article argues that, at their core, tax-subsidized contributions are part of a nondemocratic mechanism …