Press Releases

For Immediate Release
9/28/2004
Contact: Naomi Tacuyan
202-387-9177, ext. 17
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Ineffective Charitable Giving Act to be Attached as Rider to Outrageous $170 Billion Corporate Tax Break Bill
Nonprofit sector should not support bill that gives numerous corporate tax breaks just because a few charitable giving incentives are included, philanthropic watchdog asserts
WASHINGTON-The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) today warns the nonprofit sector that the diluted, and relatively ineffective, Charitable Giving Act (H.R. 7) is to be attached as a rider to H.R. 4520, the misleadingly named American Jobs Creation Act of 2004, and is being prepped to be rushed through Congress's 108th session.

"That a bill once intended to improve charitable giving and philanthropy has been revised to do the exact opposite is already shameful. Furthermore, that a bill designed to allocate more money to our charitable sector would be attached to another bill mandating even more corporate tax breaks is downright insulting to the nonprofit sector. The sector should not settle for this compromise that would generate only a small amount of revenue but give relief to multi-million dollar corporations. Saying ‘no' to this bill would show Congress that the nonprofit sector will not be a pawn in its efforts to make the super-rich even richer," said Rick Cohen, executive director of NCRP.

The Senate companion to H.R. 4520, S. 1637, had been passed in May of 2004, and the House version is currently being peddled to the House by Sens. Rick Santorum (R-PA) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) as Congress approaches the last week of their 108th session.

"The nonprofit sector should not be fooled by the attention lawmakers are giving to its concerns by including giving incentives in the JOBS Act. In light of America's ever growing deficit and President Bush's ongoing handouts to his friends and campaign supporters in corporate America, H.R. 4520 is a slap in the face to the average American citizen. Is this really the right climate to be giving corporations an additional $170 billion tax break when the government has been cutting back severely on social programs and services? This bill is fiscally irresponsible at best, and political bribery at worst," said Jeff Krehely, deputy director of NCRP.

(more)

H.R. 4520's companion bill in the Senate, S. 1637 purportedly contains more than 150 unrelated tax breaks and relief for corporate America. S. 1637 includes tax giveaways for NASCAR racing facilities worth $92 million, energy tax breaks worth $14 billion, tax breaks for film production worth $1.2 billion, cruise ship industry tax savings worth approximately $25 million, and special tax breaks for numerous commercial development projects.

The current version of the Charitable Giving Act of 2003 (H.R. 7), which made its way out of the House Ways and Means Committee in September of 2003, is actually detrimental to nonprofit and charitable accountability. While Sec. 105 of the original version of H.R. 7 could have produced up to $3.2 billion annually in new grants for charities, and encouraged foundation efficiency by excluding foundations' overhead costs from what they count as charitable spending, the current version of H.R. 7 opens more loopholes than it closes and may even reduce the amount of foundation grant dollars that go to charity, according to NCRP research.

NCRP's research on and advocacy for H.R. 7 has resulted in three subsequent reports on foundation "payout" rates and recommended steps for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the philanthropic sector-Helping Charities, Sustaining Foundations, which can be found at: www.ncrp.org/HelpingCharities.pdf; A Billion Here, a Billion There: The Empirical Data Add Up, which can be found at: http://www.ncrp.org/PDF/ABillionHereABillionThere.pdf; and Closing the Loophole: Removing Foundation Overhead Costs from Payout, which can be found at: www.ncrp.org/PDF/ClosingTheLoophole.pdf
Bookmark Print PDF