Don’t let all the shenanigans at the top stop you from doing good. It’s clear that the American system of tax preference for philanthropy is easy to abuse, but while it’s there you might as well use it to help people if you can afford to.
If your company matches donations, take them up on that. That means for $1 pre-tax (~$0.60 out of your pocket) you can give $2.00 to an organization that could use the money. That’s almost 3.5x force multiplication.
Also I promise it will feel good, and if you choose a local organization that doesn’t have mega donors (not that the big ones are all bad) they will truly notice your help.
Getting a 3.5x multiplier for a charity that is mostly waste puts you more or less back at 1x.
Which is not to say you shouldn't help people. It is to say that the best way to help may not be registered and legislated charity. Mutual aid is a powerful thing - you can enable communities around you to be self-determining, rather than funding a bunch of salaried assholes to decide what they need.
Go find a mutual aid organization near you. Set up a big chunky recurring contribution. And if you're feeling intrepid, get to know some of the people and learn how you can help out on the ground.
And what organisations, pray tell, actually need the money and would be visible to a normal human being in a country that isn't shattered by war? Most of the large charities have disgustingly paid CEO's and I can't be the only one that gets a sour taste in their mouth when I give an amount of money to them and realise this CEO receives 100k-1m in compensation while actual human beings starve in the streets or freeze to death.
I worked for several different charities for a few years. Supposedly "good ones", a couple of big names. After what I have seen I don't think I'd ever donate to a charity. The CEO's pay is almost the least concern, everything runs according to the whims of people who wouldn't last 5 minutes in a for-profit business. The people donating just want to feel good about themselves or get some positive press for donating. Those are the real customers, that's the real product, and that's what the charity focuses on delivering first and foremost. They have a couple of "showcase" projects/centers/cases they use for the cameras over and over again and the rest of the work is done as cheaply as possible to get their numbers up. The disconnect between the folks on the ground and what's happening in at the home office is greater than anywhere else I've ever seen.
In terms of finances, the real money is in fundraising. From the perspective of the charity, spending $999 on fundraising to raise $1000 dollars in donations is a net positive and huge amounts of money are "wasted" on fundraising efforts. If you want a lucrative career in the industry, being a freelance fundraising consultant is definitely the way to go. You can ask for nearly as much as you can raise and you get none of the scrutiny the CEOs get.
I guess what I really care about is "how much good does my donated dollar do?". Compare a dollar donated to expensive cancer research in the west with a dollar spent on cheap treatments which we already know to work in a developing country. How much of my dollar goes to CEO and staff pay is part of the calculation, but not the only part.
The Effective Altruism movement aims to direct money towards these activities with maximum impact. But to do this they actually need charities to collect data to measure their impact, which I guess may require some degree of professionalism.
Look at organisations like Against Malaria Fund. 100% of your donations go to buying and distributing bed nets and they collect a lot of data to prove that they end up hung above the beds of the right people.
There are an awful lot of rubbish charities but there are at least a few worthwhile ones so it’s not an excuse for not donating.
What should a non-profit CEO be paid? If it's someone who attracts top talent in the industry or has the connections to large donors, but they have equal/more passion for getting paid than the mission, what's the right choice?
Surely you can see that "get the best person you can for $40k" has limitations as a hiring strategy.
You should rethink this stance. Do you want competent people running the organization or the cheapest possible?
A charity that just passes money straight through by sending envelopes full of cash to a war torn country is much worse than one that spends a ton of money on analyzing first what the most effective way to help is.
Since the choice is often restricted for these options, I usually choose Doctors Without Borders since at least they're actually out there doing stuff on the ground.
Otherwise the FSFE when it's an option in Europe since their Public Money, Public Code campaign is great.
It's not even the CEOs. Most non-profits are just staffed by busy-bodied millennials working up a bunch of corporate memphis themed junk content. It actually is incredible how many people work jobs at a non-profit that think they are the stars of "The Bold Type" (I know that show is about a magazine). Doing nothing important all day except talking to their friends and posting it on social media - expecting that THAT was work. Also it's late and I'm salty.
> In the contemporary world, philanthropy is distinctively American. We give about four hundred and seventy billion dollars a year—more if you count donations of time, physical labor, and material. America’s total is ahead of any other country’s, even as a percentage of G.D.P.
Well, this is just not true.
Americans give 2.1% of GDP to charity [1] while the whole world gives just under 3% [2]. Also when you take a look at a comparison between countries [3] you can see that the US is far behind (percentage-wise, not rank-wise) countries like Netherlands (14%) or Switzerland (13.3%)
Your global figure includes both donations and value of time donated ([2], pg.8)
Your US figure ([1]) doesn't say anything about value of time donated so I'd assume it is not included.
Finally, the metric where Netherlands and Switzerland come out on top in [3] is in size of philanthropic assets vs GDP. This is noteworthy for sure but is a an entirely different thing than amount of yearly donations.
You're totally right about donations + value of time. Thank you for pointing that out. It's hard to tell if these numbers can be compared. Also [4] paints a very different picture (although it's for 2016).
I think that philanthropic assets should correlate to donations, but you're right also here the numbers from this source cannot be compared to the numbers I mentioned before.
Honestly I believe that the other way around would be way better. There is a lot of inefficiencies in the way governments work, plus they operate like monopolies.
On the other hand there is competition between nonprofits, plus they are often multinational.
I find it interesting that some of the most efficient government organizations (like World Food Programme) actually operate as charities (in the sense that everyone can donate to them).
Welfare should rightly fund "survival" and "levelling the playing field" resources, but charity can offer more than that - it can offer quality of life and a sense of community/belonging. It's nice to be around other people who are going through the same things, and people who support you.
So I think charity will always have a role, both financially and socially.
Substract from that how much money you made from Iraqi oil and how many houses/infrastructure you destroyed there and the result might be negative, and that's for a single country.
This whole charity idea is stupid if you're a country like the US, it's like kicking someone in the balls then giving them an aspirin for the pain and bragging about how generous you are.
For an excellent exploration of many of the contradictions and dark sides of philanthropy, I strongly recommend the podcast Tiny Spark, by Amy Costello.
I've submitted a few episodes to HN in the past (with little pick-up). The issue of donor-induced bias and misdirection is a frequent one.
Unfortunately, both the podcast and its host, Amy Costello, seem to have gone dark as of this past December. I've written the organisation, the NonProfit Quarterly, several times, and made inquiries elsewhere, but have received no word on what's going on.
The back-catalogue remains available and excellent however.
Okay, I think I have some weird blind spot here. I have really hard time understanding the reasoning behind philanthropy being a societal good that should be subsidized by taxpayers.
Let's take econ 101 and revealed preferences. It is obvious that if you give 100 bucks to a charity you get utility worth more than that 100 bucks. Otherwise you would not do that. And there is zero difference on the mechanics there if you compare to buying a movie ticket. Watching the movie gives you more utility than what the ticket costs. So, from the point of view of the donor we can think charity nothing more, nothing less than entertainment, and the question is, why one type of entertainment is tax deductible while another is not?
If we compare these transactions not only from the donor's point of view, we notice a clear distinction in power balance between those. The movie ticket transaction is relatively power neutral. Both sides have roughly equal say in the contract, both are taking part of a balanced business transaction. Charity then, is far from being power neutral, the donor has all the power in their hands. Not exactly a reason for charity being the tax-subsidized transaction here.
But charity makes good things. Like... creating a job for a movie teather cashier is somehow not a good thing? Nope, not convincing either.
As said, I have a blind spot here. I find no serious reason why charity should be subsidized. Yes, it feels good and makes good, but so do normal business transactions. If you think that charity is somehow better way to organize social security for the poor than government-tax-mandated social security, think again. (hint: prisoners' dilemma) If you think that you would like to support poor voluntarily, but not by force, you do not understand (or want to understand) that that does not result to sufficient support for the poor.
It probably exists for cultural reasons, but you can also view it as a form of decentralized decision making.
The government is saying to the citizens, if you see a problem so pressing it motivates you to altruism, we'll trust that it was important enough that you don't need to pay taxes on that money.
I like it conceptually since central authorities tend to have lots of blind spots. Like a lot of white collar crime issues, enforcement of what rules there are is lacking.
> lets take econ 101.. from the point of view of the donor we can think charity nothing more, nothing less than entertainment
Sounds like you failed econ 101.
If you only take the viewpoit of a sociopath, you will miss some crucial detail, like empathy, which is the reason people donate.
I donate because want to stave off ecosystem collapse, but you come across as the kind of person that would rather invest 2 billion in personal bunkers than 1 billion in ecosystem restoration, because the former is 'value' and the latter is 'entertainment'
Subsidize things with positive externalities (e.g. territorial defence) and tax things with negative ones (e.g. industrial processes that pollute the air).
In this case the donor gets his entertainment and good feelings and as a positive externality a child doesn't get malaria.
When Bill Gates or some other billionaire allocates some portion of his wealth to his foundation, this is tax he doesn't need to pay and can write off. The foundation needs to appear to be doing good, but it can also develop his other financial interests.
I think it's better thought of as tax efficient part of public relations spend.
The moral and economic arguments are pretty simple.
From the economic perspective, If someone gives $100 to charity, and a gets a $20 tax deduction, this is a net positive. Ostensibly, the point of government is to help people, and the point of charities are to help people. In reality, Half of that $20 tax would have gone to building bombs, so it is more like $10 vs $100.
From the moral perspective, charitable donations are set apart from other transactions because there is no quid-pro-quo, so more good is done. When you buy a movie ticket, a significant portion of that goes creating the product you receive (paying the movie studio, building the theatre, paying investors). With a charitable donation, the idea is that that more good is done because you are forgoing receiving any goods or services.
> if you give 100 bucks to a charity you get utility worth more than that 100 bucks
I find that a very odd statement to make. It is a statement that actually denies that people can act charitably at all. It comes across to me as a statement routed in a complete lack of empathy.
I'm not disagreeing with your overall point that actually less reliance on philanthropy and more tax funding of welfare and initiatives would be a benefit, just that I strongly disagree with how you get there, that all charity must be a utilitarian endeavour.
Let’s say that you give someone $100 so that they can feed their family. The good feeling you get, and the sense of justice, etc is worth $100 or more to you. Therefore, you got at least $100 utility out of it.
I think a lot of people give to philanthropy just purely for recognition that philanthropy unique provides.
I think it'd be an interesting experiment to celebrate the highest tax payers the same way we celebrate those in the Forbes 500 with magazine covers and the way non-profits celebrate their biggest donors with gala dinners.
Celebrating tax contributions and rewarding the contributor (on an opt in basis) could be hugely beneficial for certain types of wealthy individuals. Often times wealthy people enjoy being on these lists as it helps their business, PR, etc. in addition to recognition.
I think it would lead to healthier discourse as the tax contributor would be effectively be saying - of all the philanthropic causes I could support, I am purposely choosing to give up that right and instead contribute it via taxes to my country because I believe in its people to vote intelligently and the elected politicians to act in the best interests of those people.
I have always thought this. The fundamental way this is discussed today (taxation as a punitive measure) rather than celebrating the contribution to society titans of industry make when they pay their taxes.
I do not think that would matter as much as you think.
As an anecdote, I'd invite you to consider Silvio Berlusconi, which at various points in times was both the richest man and the top tax payer in Italy (and amongst the top in Europe), and a leading politician for 20 years.
He highlighted his tax contributions often, as an attempt to show that he was actually bringing a lot of value to the State, but still ran on a platform of "taxes are evil".
Yes there's definitely a negative feedback loop currently where:
- the loudest of society villify the rich regardless of whether they are fairly paying taxes or not
- a subset of rich laud each other for coming up with the most creative tax evasion schemes
Some sort of publisher should hold up the most honest, most successful tax patriots and put them up on a magazine cover.
It'd be important to have some separation of the recognition from the actual government (i.e. it should be a private publishing company) to avoid attempts to access government officials and to avoid it looking coerced.
It'd also be important to make it voluntary/opt-in as I'd imagine many would rather just be anonymous.
"I am purposely choosing to give up that right and instead contribute it via taxes to my country because I believe in its people to vote intelligently and the elected politicians to act in the best interests of those people."
I might sound cynic, but personally I could only held up that belief, if I never open my eyes again and never open any newspaper anymore, or turn on the tv. Usually I read sentences like this in satire articles, but I think I understand the motivation behind it.
Sometimes you have to give trust first, to make something work.
I am just very sceptical in this case.
The opening call out is pretty great, too. Ever see the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where Larry's big donation is upstaged by Ted's anonymous donation?
Visible philanthropy is not a simple system of rewards. It's much more interesting than that.
I think it'd still work - you'd just have to tweaked it a bit - could definitely have the list ordered with most patriotic "anonymous" tax contributors listed in order and then reward the first three non-anonymous highest tax contributors with the full 'bio'/backstory in the magazine spread.
Does anyone still care about Forbes covers? this is not 2001 anymore. Forbes along with Fortune are just shity user contributor content farms now. They got in early on the content farm bandwagon.
> right and instead contribute it via taxes to my country because I believe in its people to vote intelligently and the elected politicians to act in the best interests of those people.
If you want to throw money straight down the fucking drain, go for it. The federal budget is already not balanced. No matter what rich people donate extra, the money will be squandered exactly the same way it is today but you can’t even attach stipulations.
Statistically speaking, you money will just into the military.
I would much rather have the rich use their influence to push for good things the government doesn’t care about (hunger programs, drug rehab, housing, etc).
Well its more of a glass is half full outlook - their making the tax payments regardless. They might as well wear the t-shirt emblazoned with "I paid my taxes and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" with pride, no?
The real problem comes though when you actually do research to try to find a good charity to give to.
Tax is a side show here. The issue I found is when trying to find a good charity an overwhelming amount of the money is spent on "fund raising" and exactly what this article is talking about. I quit giving to charity besides the local food bank. Literally everything else seemed like a scam. The more the name of the charity pulls on the heart strings the better chance it is a scam too.
Me too. I researched, part of a graduate school assignment: detailed following of the money, and beyond direct gifts to local food banks or directly to people in need I honor no organized charity. The well was poisoned decades ago, and now charities are simply not charities.
A Captain of Industry who pays a lot in taxes might also indirectly use public goods like roads (for their logistics). They are not some baseline citizen with one white-picket-fence house who contributes above and beyond.
> Celebrating tax contributions and rewarding the contributor (on an opt in basis) could be hugely beneficial for certain types of wealthy individuals. Often times wealthy people enjoy being on these lists as it helps their business, PR, etc. in addition to recognition.
This is irrelevant. Rich people already rule the world. If they want better PR they can just buy it.
You can worship rich people all you want, but it would be for your own pleasure and wouldn't be relevant to the billionaires or whoever it is that we're talking about.
The OP was talking about the top tax payers, which is a specific subset of rich people. Maybe it is a good idea to come up with some soft incentives. Tax collection generally relies on "whip", but "sugar" isn't useless either.
Amusing to see some of the viewpoints today, dollar-talk about dollars.. as a person with an arts background, I can say that philantropy is obvious -- certain activities that people want to do, cannot be done without some kind of backing.. It is a matter of enabling activity that just could not happen otherwise. Some of the participants were vaguely aware that a "CEO" was being paid somewhere, but what was important was the programs. Who cares about the CEO. It is the other money counters that cared most, not participants. Similarly with "who is running this"/socal dominance.. the other dominance people cared.. so what? On the other hand, the amount of random friction, surprising attitude moments and personal instability with cat-herding dynamics, is notable. Surviving the year is a real concern.
Most of the comments here are more aligned with the problems of "Cancer Inc" or "Red Cross" sorts of non-profits, where the mission is real but the massive insititution is decades old and owns a lot of property and equipment, and the executive branch really is in a different world, and people are hired to do boring jobs.
Lastly, it is famously true that huge, huge groups are non-profits, where a lot of money changes hands.. and those kinds of setups are closed to your questions, e.g. hospitals and big league sports. ok one more - the "royalty" of those like the Bishop Museum or the Playboy Golf Championship in the 1980s, which both devolved into giant, serious scams where people actually, eventually went to jail. have fun with your non-profits! others did...
I don't necessarily want it to go away entirely, but the tax breaks should be abolished. It's particularly offensive to see the state and local tax deduction (money that actually goes to help one's fellows in the ways they see fit, without being beholden to the whims of the "donor") capped while 503c "donations" remain an unlimited deduction.
>It's particularly offensive to see the state and local tax deduction (money that actually goes to help one's fellows in the ways they see fit, without being beholden to the whims of the "donor") capped while 503c "donations" remain an unlimited deduction.
The point of charitable deductions is to incentivize certain types of behavior (ie. charitable donations). On the other hand the SALT deduction is effectively the federal government subsidizing high-tax jurisdictions at the expense of low-tax jurisdictions. The first seems far more defensible and in line with the federal government's mission[1], than some sort of mechanism to pad the finances of certain states. This doesn't necessarily exclude redistribute policies by the federal government entirely, but doing it by tax rate is baffling no matter how you look at it.
[1] and no, this argument doesn't work for the SALT deduction because state/local taxes aren't optional
Not really. Flyover and southern states in particular mooch off of the productive locales.
So not only do I need to pay more taxes for the US government to fund almost double my states pro rata aid to places like West Virginia and Mississippi, but I get to pay even higher taxes because my locality actually provides things like sound education.
You know what, I think we should exercise the people’s desire for small government and relocate military bases to the places that pay for them.
Tax deductions shouldn't be incentives for random policy ideas, they should keep the tax system fair by taxing people on income that really is theirs to dispose of freely. The fact that people don't have any choice about whether to pay state or local taxes is precisely why they should be able to deduct them from their federal taxes.
States' rights require states' rights to their money. Federal income tax should be near zero and the Senate representatives should offer treaty money.
Enough theft from my pocket. I'll fund my fellow man. But to fund a man who calls himself my enemy and removes my freedom: it takes a Big Government fanatic to require that.
That’s funny, I feel the exact opposite for the same reasons. I think charitable donations are far better than taxes because the donors get to direct where the money goes and have say over its use.
Those giving up their money are in the best position to ensure it is used towards the ends they want. I think direct oversight is a positive attribute and useful in ensuring the altruistic goals are effectively met.
I also oppose local tax deductions despite standing to benefit greatly.
"The ends they want" - as opposed to the ends the recipients want (as expressed through an admittedly imperfect democratic system) - is exactly what I object to. Most "donations" are made to advance a personal agenda at least in part; even when the donor sincerely believes they're doing what's best for people, that's usually a reflection of their personal politics and you'll often find other people believing the exact opposite. It's fine to fund personal causes, admirable even, but you shouldn't be given a tax break for it.
I've thought about this in the context of charities, since the US is a highly charitable country, with popular distrust of the government, yet is relatively impoverished compared to some other advanced countries. From the viewpoint of the beneficiaries of charity, who I presume are the poor, do they tend to be better off in countries where they are heavily supported by private charity, or in countries where taxes pay to support generous public institutions?
The tax break is only around 20% of the donation. Even if the donated money is not spent as perfectly as you would like, there's 5 times as much of it.
different political things, but the salt cap was a punitive thing purely for you to have resentment about where you live, it’s interesting that instead you got resentment for non profits
republicans want you to have resentment at high tax states run by democrats, so that you consider regime change in that state
Readit News
If your company matches donations, take them up on that. That means for $1 pre-tax (~$0.60 out of your pocket) you can give $2.00 to an organization that could use the money. That’s almost 3.5x force multiplication.
Also I promise it will feel good, and if you choose a local organization that doesn’t have mega donors (not that the big ones are all bad) they will truly notice your help.
Which is not to say you shouldn't help people. It is to say that the best way to help may not be registered and legislated charity. Mutual aid is a powerful thing - you can enable communities around you to be self-determining, rather than funding a bunch of salaried assholes to decide what they need.
Go find a mutual aid organization near you. Set up a big chunky recurring contribution. And if you're feeling intrepid, get to know some of the people and learn how you can help out on the ground.
In terms of finances, the real money is in fundraising. From the perspective of the charity, spending $999 on fundraising to raise $1000 dollars in donations is a net positive and huge amounts of money are "wasted" on fundraising efforts. If you want a lucrative career in the industry, being a freelance fundraising consultant is definitely the way to go. You can ask for nearly as much as you can raise and you get none of the scrutiny the CEOs get.
The Effective Altruism movement aims to direct money towards these activities with maximum impact. But to do this they actually need charities to collect data to measure their impact, which I guess may require some degree of professionalism.
https://www.effectivealtruism.org/
https://www.charitynavigator.org/
https://www.givewell.org/
https://www.charitywatch.org/
There are an awful lot of rubbish charities but there are at least a few worthwhile ones so it’s not an excuse for not donating.
Surely you can see that "get the best person you can for $40k" has limitations as a hiring strategy.
A charity that just passes money straight through by sending envelopes full of cash to a war torn country is much worse than one that spends a ton of money on analyzing first what the most effective way to help is.
Otherwise the FSFE when it's an option in Europe since their Public Money, Public Code campaign is great.
Deleted Comment
Well, this is just not true.
Americans give 2.1% of GDP to charity [1] while the whole world gives just under 3% [2]. Also when you take a look at a comparison between countries [3] you can see that the US is far behind (percentage-wise, not rank-wise) countries like Netherlands (14%) or Switzerland (13.3%)
1. https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=content.view&...
2. https://www.privatebank.citibank.com/newcpb-media/media/docu...
3. https://www.axios.com/2019/11/30/most-charitable-countries-w...
Your US figure ([1]) doesn't say anything about value of time donated so I'd assume it is not included.
Finally, the metric where Netherlands and Switzerland come out on top in [3] is in size of philanthropic assets vs GDP. This is noteworthy for sure but is a an entirely different thing than amount of yearly donations.
I think that philanthropic assets should correlate to donations, but you're right also here the numbers from this source cannot be compared to the numbers I mentioned before.
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_charitabl...
Best case scenario would be where no charity is needed, am I wrong?
On the other hand there is competition between nonprofits, plus they are often multinational.
I find it interesting that some of the most efficient government organizations (like World Food Programme) actually operate as charities (in the sense that everyone can donate to them).
So I think charity will always have a role, both financially and socially.
Considering purchasing power parity GDP would be even better.
> more if you count donations of time, physical labor and material
This whole charity idea is stupid if you're a country like the US, it's like kicking someone in the balls then giving them an aspirin for the pain and bragging about how generous you are.
I've submitted a few episodes to HN in the past (with little pick-up). The issue of donor-induced bias and misdirection is a frequent one.
Unfortunately, both the podcast and its host, Amy Costello, seem to have gone dark as of this past December. I've written the organisation, the NonProfit Quarterly, several times, and made inquiries elsewhere, but have received no word on what's going on.
The back-catalogue remains available and excellent however.
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/tiny-spark/
https://nitter.kavin.rocks/tinyspark_org
https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/108335472990676476
Let's take econ 101 and revealed preferences. It is obvious that if you give 100 bucks to a charity you get utility worth more than that 100 bucks. Otherwise you would not do that. And there is zero difference on the mechanics there if you compare to buying a movie ticket. Watching the movie gives you more utility than what the ticket costs. So, from the point of view of the donor we can think charity nothing more, nothing less than entertainment, and the question is, why one type of entertainment is tax deductible while another is not?
If we compare these transactions not only from the donor's point of view, we notice a clear distinction in power balance between those. The movie ticket transaction is relatively power neutral. Both sides have roughly equal say in the contract, both are taking part of a balanced business transaction. Charity then, is far from being power neutral, the donor has all the power in their hands. Not exactly a reason for charity being the tax-subsidized transaction here.
But charity makes good things. Like... creating a job for a movie teather cashier is somehow not a good thing? Nope, not convincing either.
As said, I have a blind spot here. I find no serious reason why charity should be subsidized. Yes, it feels good and makes good, but so do normal business transactions. If you think that charity is somehow better way to organize social security for the poor than government-tax-mandated social security, think again. (hint: prisoners' dilemma) If you think that you would like to support poor voluntarily, but not by force, you do not understand (or want to understand) that that does not result to sufficient support for the poor.
The government is saying to the citizens, if you see a problem so pressing it motivates you to altruism, we'll trust that it was important enough that you don't need to pay taxes on that money.
I like it conceptually since central authorities tend to have lots of blind spots. Like a lot of white collar crime issues, enforcement of what rules there are is lacking.
Sounds like you failed econ 101.
If you only take the viewpoit of a sociopath, you will miss some crucial detail, like empathy, which is the reason people donate.
I donate because want to stave off ecosystem collapse, but you come across as the kind of person that would rather invest 2 billion in personal bunkers than 1 billion in ecosystem restoration, because the former is 'value' and the latter is 'entertainment'
In this case the donor gets his entertainment and good feelings and as a positive externality a child doesn't get malaria.
Graduate degrees, pollution, loud cars/motorcycles, ugly buildings, mountain climbing, alcohol, marijuana, fashion magazines. So many possibilities.
When Bill Gates or some other billionaire allocates some portion of his wealth to his foundation, this is tax he doesn't need to pay and can write off. The foundation needs to appear to be doing good, but it can also develop his other financial interests.
I think it's better thought of as tax efficient part of public relations spend.
From the economic perspective, If someone gives $100 to charity, and a gets a $20 tax deduction, this is a net positive. Ostensibly, the point of government is to help people, and the point of charities are to help people. In reality, Half of that $20 tax would have gone to building bombs, so it is more like $10 vs $100.
From the moral perspective, charitable donations are set apart from other transactions because there is no quid-pro-quo, so more good is done. When you buy a movie ticket, a significant portion of that goes creating the product you receive (paying the movie studio, building the theatre, paying investors). With a charitable donation, the idea is that that more good is done because you are forgoing receiving any goods or services.
I find that a very odd statement to make. It is a statement that actually denies that people can act charitably at all. It comes across to me as a statement routed in a complete lack of empathy.
I'm not disagreeing with your overall point that actually less reliance on philanthropy and more tax funding of welfare and initiatives would be a benefit, just that I strongly disagree with how you get there, that all charity must be a utilitarian endeavour.
Let’s say that you give someone $100 so that they can feed their family. The good feeling you get, and the sense of justice, etc is worth $100 or more to you. Therefore, you got at least $100 utility out of it.
Maybe? That’s what I’m guessing the OP meant.
But charity became its own distorted industry.
I think it'd be an interesting experiment to celebrate the highest tax payers the same way we celebrate those in the Forbes 500 with magazine covers and the way non-profits celebrate their biggest donors with gala dinners.
Celebrating tax contributions and rewarding the contributor (on an opt in basis) could be hugely beneficial for certain types of wealthy individuals. Often times wealthy people enjoy being on these lists as it helps their business, PR, etc. in addition to recognition.
I think it would lead to healthier discourse as the tax contributor would be effectively be saying - of all the philanthropic causes I could support, I am purposely choosing to give up that right and instead contribute it via taxes to my country because I believe in its people to vote intelligently and the elected politicians to act in the best interests of those people.
As an anecdote, I'd invite you to consider Silvio Berlusconi, which at various points in times was both the richest man and the top tax payer in Italy (and amongst the top in Europe), and a leading politician for 20 years.
He highlighted his tax contributions often, as an attempt to show that he was actually bringing a lot of value to the State, but still ran on a platform of "taxes are evil".
- the loudest of society villify the rich regardless of whether they are fairly paying taxes or not
- a subset of rich laud each other for coming up with the most creative tax evasion schemes
Some sort of publisher should hold up the most honest, most successful tax patriots and put them up on a magazine cover.
It'd be important to have some separation of the recognition from the actual government (i.e. it should be a private publishing company) to avoid attempts to access government officials and to avoid it looking coerced.
It'd also be important to make it voluntary/opt-in as I'd imagine many would rather just be anonymous.
I might sound cynic, but personally I could only held up that belief, if I never open my eyes again and never open any newspaper anymore, or turn on the tv. Usually I read sentences like this in satire articles, but I think I understand the motivation behind it. Sometimes you have to give trust first, to make something work. I am just very sceptical in this case.
https://nautil.us/larry-david-and-the-game-theory-of-anonymo...
The opening call out is pretty great, too. Ever see the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where Larry's big donation is upstaged by Ted's anonymous donation?
Visible philanthropy is not a simple system of rewards. It's much more interesting than that.
I think it'd still work - you'd just have to tweaked it a bit - could definitely have the list ordered with most patriotic "anonymous" tax contributors listed in order and then reward the first three non-anonymous highest tax contributors with the full 'bio'/backstory in the magazine spread.
If you want to throw money straight down the fucking drain, go for it. The federal budget is already not balanced. No matter what rich people donate extra, the money will be squandered exactly the same way it is today but you can’t even attach stipulations.
Statistically speaking, you money will just into the military.
I would much rather have the rich use their influence to push for good things the government doesn’t care about (hunger programs, drug rehab, housing, etc).
There are several causes I support; none of them are close to and just slightly more effective than giving that money to the government.
Tax is a side show here. The issue I found is when trying to find a good charity an overwhelming amount of the money is spent on "fund raising" and exactly what this article is talking about. I quit giving to charity besides the local food bank. Literally everything else seemed like a scam. The more the name of the charity pulls on the heart strings the better chance it is a scam too.
> Celebrating tax contributions and rewarding the contributor (on an opt in basis) could be hugely beneficial for certain types of wealthy individuals. Often times wealthy people enjoy being on these lists as it helps their business, PR, etc. in addition to recognition.
This is irrelevant. Rich people already rule the world. If they want better PR they can just buy it.
You can worship rich people all you want, but it would be for your own pleasure and wouldn't be relevant to the billionaires or whoever it is that we're talking about.
Most of the comments here are more aligned with the problems of "Cancer Inc" or "Red Cross" sorts of non-profits, where the mission is real but the massive insititution is decades old and owns a lot of property and equipment, and the executive branch really is in a different world, and people are hired to do boring jobs.
Lastly, it is famously true that huge, huge groups are non-profits, where a lot of money changes hands.. and those kinds of setups are closed to your questions, e.g. hospitals and big league sports. ok one more - the "royalty" of those like the Bishop Museum or the Playboy Golf Championship in the 1980s, which both devolved into giant, serious scams where people actually, eventually went to jail. have fun with your non-profits! others did...
The point of charitable deductions is to incentivize certain types of behavior (ie. charitable donations). On the other hand the SALT deduction is effectively the federal government subsidizing high-tax jurisdictions at the expense of low-tax jurisdictions. The first seems far more defensible and in line with the federal government's mission[1], than some sort of mechanism to pad the finances of certain states. This doesn't necessarily exclude redistribute policies by the federal government entirely, but doing it by tax rate is baffling no matter how you look at it.
[1] and no, this argument doesn't work for the SALT deduction because state/local taxes aren't optional
So not only do I need to pay more taxes for the US government to fund almost double my states pro rata aid to places like West Virginia and Mississippi, but I get to pay even higher taxes because my locality actually provides things like sound education.
You know what, I think we should exercise the people’s desire for small government and relocate military bases to the places that pay for them.
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Enough theft from my pocket. I'll fund my fellow man. But to fund a man who calls himself my enemy and removes my freedom: it takes a Big Government fanatic to require that.
Those giving up their money are in the best position to ensure it is used towards the ends they want. I think direct oversight is a positive attribute and useful in ensuring the altruistic goals are effectively met.
I also oppose local tax deductions despite standing to benefit greatly.
With defense spending, pet projects, and incompetence, it is hard to make a case that they are on parity.
I get to avoid capital gains on the donation of appreciated assets on top of that.
For whom is the benefit only 20%?
the salt is called via a $
different political things, but the salt cap was a punitive thing purely for you to have resentment about where you live, it’s interesting that instead you got resentment for non profits
republicans want you to have resentment at high tax states run by democrats, so that you consider regime change in that state