Advocate for Tax Reform!

One of the issues we are advocating for during our time in DC is tax reform, specifically encouragement of charitable gifts to support the arts. Some of our action points for Congress are:

• Preserve incentives for charitable giving, including tax deductibility
• Reinstate the IRA Rollover
• Reject any attempts to create a hierarchy of deductions to nonprofits, potentially reducing incentives for charitable gifts to arts and culture organizations compared to other partners with the nonprofit community.

Why does Congress need to take action on these?

Nonprofit arts organizations attract donations from people across the economic spectrum, and they serve people across their communities, including underserved populations.

    The arts are truly for everyone, serving all populations. These organizations are the ones that have programs that focus on healthcare, addiction, senior services, education, cultural preservation, etc. On top of all that they offer, nonprofit arts organizations create jobs (over 5 million throughout the entire country!) and economic growth. Also, arts and culture define our communities. 

Unlike other tax deductions, charitable giving incentives do not enrich individual donors: they are an investment for the public good. 

    Preserving tax incentives will only help nonprofits to expand and create more programming and opportunities for their communities. 

Diminishing charitable giving incentives in the interest of short-term revenue gain will have lasting unintended consequences for nonprofit services and jobs. 

   Many nonprofits cannot survive with even the smallest decline in giving--40% of financial support for most nonprofits come from charitable giving. Without this, these organizations wouldn't survive, leading to a spiraling effect of lost employment and economic growth, not to mention harming a community. 

Proposed changed to charitable tax deduction will reduce giving. 

   Donors do not respond to tax law changes. Previous examples show that donors will not give less because often most giving is "from the heart."

The public supports the charitable deduction. 

  A recent poll discovered that 7 of 10 Americans oppose eliminating the charitable deduction, regardless of lowering taxes or reducing the national deficit. 

My thoughts? 

This is necessary! These charitable donations are what many of my favorite non-profit groups survive on, and without them, they will struggle, if not fall completely. Daily, nonprofit arts organizations struggle with maintaining their donations and to make it even more difficult will be detrimental. Federal funding for the arts is not enough, especially when we receive 3 cents out of every $100 spent in the discretionary fund. That number is so minute that it's laughable, and it becomes offensive when more restrictions are placed on charitable giving. We are asking Congress for things that will do good, many of which were once in place. These items are not extreme, are very fair, and will only help.

We should preserve the things we love about our community. #AAD12