For fact, the Joint Committee on Taxation states that the U.S. government loses $40 billion in tax revenue each year because of charitable donations. Most horrifying is that these tax deductions are not the same for every American. Less than half of the big buckin’ taxpayers that itemize are afforded tax deductions for charitable donations. To boil this down to the simple, it is in the billionaire’s financial best interest to make charitable donations, but the person making $60,000 does not get a tax benefit unless a relatively large contribution level is reached.
Further still, the affluent contributor that gets the tax deduction for charitable giving very often makes the contribution to a self-serving organization like their children’s school or a sports organization. Do you think a run-of-mill citizen can get season’s tickets to the University of Texas football games without a donation to the Longhorn Foundation? Not on your life. The money raised goes to pay for the education of the athletes, many of whom do not even graduate—but, gee they can run fast.
For some, debasing the meaning of charity by dressing it up in crowns and gowns is not significant, but for society as a whole it is important. While one woman makes a well-photographed appearance in a Gucci original, one woman works three jobs and tithes 10 percent to church. Gucci Woman enjoys a tax deduction that she doesn’t even feel or need, and Worker Woman wrings her hands over not being able to afford the fee for her child to play extra-curricular sports. While the art museum hosts and roasts Millionaire Guy in a room full of business deals, Single Mother is ashamed that she had to make the once-in-while stop by the FoodBank only to find it lacking in supplies. Guess the FoodBank should cultivate donors who have bigger social aspirations.
What can be done to reverse this ugly self-absorbed trend? Retrain the children. The generation who has “no gifts, please” birthday parties might grow up understanding that the party need not focus on them. Certainly by the time this next generation matures, the days of CEO annual salaries exceeding $44 million and the onslaught of retired at sixty-two babyboomers will have sucked the economy dry and the lesson of selfless giving will have returned, though its birth will leave an indelible scar on society—which could have been avoided.
