New Charitable Giving Incentives in CARES Act

At the end of last week, President Donald Trump signed into law the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The $2.2 trillion rescue package comes in response to the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. The measure contains a number of provisions to encourage greater charitable giving including:

Universal Charitable Deduction Provision. Taxpayers who are non-itemizers may take an above-the-line deduction for charitable giving up to $300 in cash contributions during 2020. Contributions to Donor Advised Funds are not eligible. While the provision was intended to be temporary, the law itself states it “begins in 2020” and does not contain a sunset date, according to Jason Lee, former Chief Advocacy and Strategy Officer and General Counsel at the Association of Fundraising Professionals. That means that the provision might extend beyond 2020, something advocacy groups will seek to ensure along with trying to raise the $300 cap.

Increase of Itemizer Charitable Giving Cap. For 2020, the CARES Act eliminates the current cap on annual deductible-contributions for those who itemize. The law raises the cap from 60 percent of adjusted gross income to 100 percent.

Corporate Giving Incentives. The law raises the annual giving limit from 10 percent to 25 percent of taxable income. Furthermore, corporations will be permitted to increase deductions for food donations with the cap increasing from 15 percent to 25 percent of taxable income.

Non-philanthropic Provisions for Nonprofits. The law contains several other provisions that can directly benefit nonprofit organizations while not involving philanthropy. The National Council of Nonprofits has prepared a summary of these key provisions, which you can find by clicking here.

Warning: The IRS Wants You to Do Something Dangerous

The US Internal Revenue Service wants you to do something foolish.

The IRS has proposed that charities acquire, record, and report the Social Security numbers of all donors who give $250 or more in any given calendar year. The IRS justifies the proposal by stating that “the collection of information is necessary to properly substantiate charitable contribution deductions under the exception to the general requirements for substantiating charitable contribution deductions of $250 or more.”

However, the proposed regulation is particularly stupid because it is completely unnecessary while being dangerous — to nonprofits and their donors — and costly to implement properly.

You can read the proposed regulation by clicking here. In addition, the website will allow you to share your comments with the IRS by December 16, 2015.

If adopted, compliance with the regulation would be voluntary, for now. Nevertheless, there are several reasons you should be very wary, including:

Voluntary Compliance Could be Made a Requirement.

If the IRS truly believes the measure is necessary, why wouldn’t it seek to change voluntary compliance to a requirement? The collection of Social Security numbers from donors is either essential or not. The IRS can’t have it both ways. Therefore, there is a strong possibility that the IRS is cynically hoping to gain acceptance for the proposal in stages, first seeking voluntary compliance before making it a requirement.

“Any proposed regulations that would create this has the potential for being a slippery slope,” David Heinen, spokesman for the North Carolina Center for Nonprofits, told Fox News.

The IRS Lacks the Capacity to Safeguard Data.

“Number one, the IRS has not demonstrated its capacity to hold this type of information from confidentiality and a security point of view,” US Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL), a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, told Fox News.

Mark Fitzgibbons, President of Corporate Affairs at American Target Advertising, echoed Roskam’s concerns when he told Fox News, “The IRS can’t keep its information confidential, they’ve been hacked.” ATA offers direct-response fundraising services.

There are two major security problems with providing the IRS with donor Social Security numbers: 1) The very real risk that the data would not be safe in the hands of the IRS, and 2) the public’s perception that the data would be at risk at the IRS.

Most Charities Lack the Ability to Safeguard Data.

The data security concern also applies to charities themselves. Few nonprofit organizations are capable of truly protecting donor data. Giving hackers and nefarious insiders easy access to donor Social Security numbers and other information puts donors at significant risk of identity theft. To mitigate that risk would cost charities an enormous amount of money.

“Charities are not well equipped to deal with this,” Roskam said. “We’ve had for-profit companies — some of the biggest companies in the world — that have spent millions and millions and millions of dollars trying to protect their confidential data. And it’s been hacked, and it’s been breached.”

New Pew Report Sheds Light on Tax Deductions and Philanthropy

[Publisher’s Note: Michael J. Rosen, CFRE will be interviewed by CausePlanet in a free webinar about his award-winning book, Donor-Centered Planned Gift Marketing. Learn more and register for the October 17 program by clicking HERE. If you need a speaker or trainer, contact Rosen today.]

–

A new report issued by the Pew Charitable Trusts provides valuable insights into the effect that tax deductions and credits have on charitable giving. The report comes at a critical time as federal and state governments continue to look for additional sources of revenue including cuts to charitable-giving tax deductions.

The Pew report, written by Elaine S. Povich, looks at the impact of tinkering with tax write-offs for charitable giving in a number of states including Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, and Vermont. The report nicely summarizes the impact of tax policy on philanthropy:

Tax incentives for charitable giving directly affect donations, particularly from high-income donors, according to Jon Bakija, an economics professor at Williams College. ‘Tax incentives for charitable donations in the US succeed in causing donations to increase, probably by about as much or more than they cost in terms of reduced tax revenue,’ he wrote in a paper published recently by the journal Social Research.”

Bakija went on to write:

This strengthens the case for the tax subsidies for donations.”

In an illuminating case study, the Pew report looks at what happened in Hawaii when the state government imposed a cap on the charitable giving tax deduction. According to Mallory Fujitani, of the Hawaii Department of Taxation, the state expected the move to generate about $12 million to the state treasury. Unfortunately, the move cost charities $50 million to $60 million in lost donations, according to Tim Delaney, President and CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits.

In other words, Hawaii found that for every new dollar of tax revenue it generated from the cap on the charitable giving deduction, charities lost five dollars!

David L. Thompson, Vice President of Public Policy at the National Council of Nonprofits, summarized the experience of the various states that have tinkered with the charitable giving deduction:

What we learned in the states is that the charitable deduction is not just a nice thing for taxpayers, it’s vital to the communities. All politicians from across the political spectrum have come to the same conclusion that we are hurting our communities by discouraging giving to charities.”

Given the crystal clear Pew report, the experiences of various states, and the findings of academic research studies, a number of important questions come to mind: