{"id":191,"date":"2012-12-10T06:05:04","date_gmt":"2012-12-10T14:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/newbeans\/?p=191"},"modified":"2012-12-08T21:31:54","modified_gmt":"2012-12-09T05:31:54","slug":"standing-up-for-the-charitable-tax-deduction-is-standing-up-for-a-healthy-society-or-reframing-away-from-giving-a-tax-break-to-the-rich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/newbeans\/2012\/12\/standing-up-for-the-charitable-tax-deduction-is-standing-up-for-a-healthy-society-or-reframing-away-from-giving-a-tax-break-to-the-rich.html","title":{"rendered":"Standing Up for the Charitable Tax Deduction Is Standing Up for a Healthy Society; or Reframing away from giving a tax break to the rich"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In a comment on my post from last week<\/a>\u00a0about framing, John Carnwath honed in on a comment I sort of tossed off about the threat to the charitable deduction posed by the fiscal cliff.\u00a0 Take a look at his comment, which is very well laid out\u2014he notes that while the tax deduction for charitable giving is surely and important driver for the arts, he\u2019s not convinced that, given the topic of the post, a frame that suggests favoring the wealthy with a \u201ctax break\u201d is the best idea.\u00a0 He notes that, \u201cwhile eliminating tax deductions would undoubtedly be devastating for many arts organizations, I can\u2019t help thinking that something positive might come out of it, too.\u00a0 Might it be easier for us to adapt to the changing society around us if we weren\u2019t dependent on gifts from our generous donors (wealthy, old, white) and the indirect government subsidies that come along with them?\u201d<\/p>\n

I think this is a really hard issue, and that John\u2019s question about the framing of it is really important.<\/p>\n

The truth of the matter is, individual charitable donations to the arts are crucial to the survival of most organizations\u2014moreso, actually, than for other types of nonprofits, according to a 2003 report from Grantmakers in the Arts<\/a>.\u00a0 For the sector overall, the GIA report estimated at the time that about 50% of all contributed income is from individual donations.\u00a0 According to the 2012 Giving USA Annual Report, as quoted by Independent Sector<\/a>, total charitable giving was just over $298 billion in 2011, of which about 4%, or just shy of $12 billion went to arts organizations.\u00a0 About 73%, or $217 billion of that giving, came from individuals\u2014which means that about $9 billion in individual donations came into the US arts sector in 2011.<\/p>\n

The fact is, individual donations prop up the arts sector in a way that would mean a serious deflation and reduction in organizations if those donations were to drastically decrease.<\/p>\n

Which gets us to the proposed limitation on the tax deduction for charitable giving.\u00a0 Currently, the deduction<\/a> allows individuals to claim deductions of up to 50% of their adjusted gross income on their taxes as long as they itemize their tax returns.\u00a0 Per the Christian Science Monitor<\/em><\/a>, and to John\u2019s original point, these deductions are primarily taken advantage of by the wealthy\u2014only about 30% of all taxpayers itemize their returns, and the majority of those people are in the highest tax brackets.\u00a0 In addition, while about 65% of all households give to charitable causes, according to the Indiana University Center of Philanthropy<\/a>, the top 3% of earners (those making over $200,000 in annual income) contribute nearly 45% of all donated dollars, and so are therefore disproportionately advantaged by the deduction.<\/p>\n

The idea of capping deductions emerged, interestingly, out of the Romney camp during the presidential election.\u00a0 Romney, who of course was unable to propose tax increases, suggested a $17,000 cap on total deductions as a way of increasing revenue without raising taxes.\u00a0 As this article<\/a> from the Washington Post<\/em> notes, $17,000 is a really, really easy number to hit\u2014and not just for the top 3% of earners.\u00a0 As the article notes, \u201cThe typical household gets about $15,000 chopped off its taxable income from the employer health-care exemption alone, so many families would hit the $17,000 limit very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the Wall Street Journal<\/em><\/a>, in 2011, Mitt Romney claimed $2.25 million in charitable deductions.\u00a0 \u00a0It is hard to argue that, given that reality, and even understanding that Romney is in the top percent-of-a-percent of earners in the United States, a reduction from 50% of total earned revenue to $17,000 would not be a boon to a cash-strapped government.\u00a0 And yet\u2026<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s assume that those top 3% of earners all made exactly $200,000 in 2011\u2014this is a flawed thought experiment, but go with me.\u00a0 Three percent of the total adult US population is currently about 7.5 million people, and each of those people would go from being eligible to deduct up to $100,000 (50% of their total income) to deduct $17,000.\u00a0 If everyone was giving at their maximum, that would mean going from $750 million in potential charitable deductions to about $127 million.\u00a0 Assuming that the deduction is actually a driver of giving, and that not getting it is a deterrent to giving, that\u2019s quite the decrease in potential contributions.<\/p>\n

Barack Obama\u2019s current proposal<\/a>, which is being floated (and considered strongly by both parties) in context with the fiscal cliff negotiations, is to reduce the percentage from 50% to 28%.\u00a0 This, of course, is less drastic, but it still means a potential 50% loss in deductions, and, again with the assumption that the deduction drives donations, a whole lot of lost contributed revenue in the years to come.<\/p>\n

So, does the deduction actually drive charitable giving?\u00a0 According to the Christian Science Monitor<\/em><\/a>, the research on that question is relatively mixed.\u00a0 The latest seems to say that the overall effect of the deduction is small, but is largest with the richest donors, which means that the effect of changing the deduction might hit disproportionately since those are the donors who are likely to give the largest gifts.<\/p>\n

All of that said, let\u2019s get back to the framing question.\u00a0 To me, what John poses in his original comment is a crucial distinction: are we arguing for a tax break for the wealthy, or are we arguing for a society that rewards contributions to organizations devoted to the social good?\u00a0 For me, both practically and rhetorically, I think if we aren\u2019t arguing mostly for the second case (public support of the social good) then it\u2019s only because we\u2019re so used to arguing with economics in hand that we\u2019ve forgotten how much that particular blade can cut both ways.<\/p>\n

Arguing for the tax deduction for charitable giving isn\u2019t about saving a vibrant cultural (and religious, and environmental, and health, and poverty, and etc) sector from ruin, although that would be a major, major benefit.\u00a0 Arguing for the tax deduction, or at any rate arguing for a mechanism to reward civicly-minded individuals who wish to support the social welfare by giving their money freely, is about reminding the government of the importance of societal well-being as a lubricant that keeps the more profitable cogs and wheels of our industry moving healthily and with care.\u00a0 Encouraging private support of the arts, and all the not-for-profit sector, is encouraging the responsibility of the population for its emotional and empathetic health, its future and its past.\u00a0 By cutting into such encouragement, by removing the signal from our government that such support is a good and powerful and necessary act for the public good, politicians are yet again turning their backs on what has always made our country great\u2014our ability to lift each other up, heal each other, remind each other of our best and our worst, and carry ourselves forward in hope.<\/p>\n

This blog is devoted to the idea that talking about the instrumental benefits of the arts isn’t the only, or even necessarily the best, way of talking about the value of the arts.\u00a0 By that same token, talking about the finances of arts organizations in context with charitable tax deductions instead of talking about what it say about our society that we might be considering taking them away is, I fear, small, and will not get us where we want and need to go.\u00a0 John was very right, in that context–while I don’t know that the particular nature of arguing for a “tax break” is a poor frame, arguing for it without explaining what such government imprematur might mean for that “tax break” is giving up the war for a particularly difficult battle.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve made that argument to my senators and representatives, and I suggest you do the same.\u00a0 Americans for the Arts has set up an easy way for you to do just that<\/a>, and it only takes two minutes.\u00a0 These fiscal cliff negotiations are taking place now, behind closed doors, and if we\u2019re interested in making sure that in saving our financial souls the politicos don\u2019t accidentally do lasting damage to our more general well-being, we must let them hear what we have to say, now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a comment on my post from last week\u00a0about framing, John Carnwath honed in on a comment I sort of tossed off about the threat to the charitable deduction posed by the fiscal cliff.\u00a0 Take a look at his comment, which is very well laid out\u2014he notes that while the tax deduction for charitable giving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7,6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-191","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-advocacy","8":"category-language","9":"category-research","10":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/newbeans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/newbeans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/newbeans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/newbeans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/newbeans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/newbeans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/newbeans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/newbeans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/newbeans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/newbeans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}