Tax Exemptions

So after reading a number of posts on this topic, I’ve decided I don’t necessarily believe people, who donate money, should receive a tax break. I mean, why do people need a reward for donating money? After all, it was their decision to do so. Must there always be an incentive other than a “warm fuzzy feeling” to persuade donors into giving money to charities?

I guess I don’t necessarily think tax deductibles are bad things, but do we really need them? I wonder… How much of a change do you think there would be in donations to non-profit organizations if people didn’t receive tax deductions for their contribution? Just wondering, but it kind of makes me consider how “giving” we really are. After all, everything charity related seems to have some sort of materialistic incentive to doing good more times than not. Someone discussed the charities we used to do as children earlier in the posts. I realize that some like the Salvation Army were truly “giving” without a materialistic incentive, but usually the charities did have some sort of reward like pizza parties or ice cream socials for the biggest collectors/donors.  It’s really surprising to me that we’ve been expecting rewards for giving since we were young.  Do you think it was wrong of our mentors/teachers to bribe us with these rewards? Did it send the wrong message? or was it harmless? I can’t lie to myself, I did enjoy the pizza.

Tax Deductions

In response to the previous post, I completely agree that tax exemptions should be left as is.

It’s as simple as, giving is rewarding, so sometimes there needs to be a reward.  I also, remember giving my clothes to places like Good Will when I was younger.  I had no idea that my parents were in any way receiving any other monetary reward from donating.  Now that I know there are some tax deductions involved, it really doesn’t change how I feel about donating.  Even people who donate just to get the deductions are, bottom line, still doing a good service to someone else.  Isn’t that the whole point of donating?

I wonder what would happen if the government took away all tax breaks.  Would non-profits see a huge decrease in funds? I think so.  In order to persuade people to take the time out of their day to donate, there sometimes has to be incentives, and tax deductions can be a very powerful one.