Tuesday (11/20) on CNN Money, Jennifer Liberto writes, “Charities and nonprofits are digging in their heels on Capitol Hill as they prepare to defend tax breaks for charitable donations that are under threat from the fiscal cliff. Leaders in both parties are on the lookout for revenue to avert the fiscal cliff. Nonprofits are worried that deductions for charitable giving will either get slashed or capped. If that happens, charitable groups fear donations would drop and Americans may halt their usual rush to give cash and assistance. … A lobbying group has for the first time set up a website where people can send automatic, targeted letters to local lawmakers and the White House ‘to oppose any efforts’ to limit the charitable deduction. ‘We intend to go to our community—whether you work on nuclear proliferation, or expanding arts in Harlem, or making sure dolphins continue to live and thrive, or making bicycle paths in middle America,’ said Diana Aviv, president of the Independent Sector, which lobbies Congress on behalf of charities and nonprofits. ‘Once we awaken that sleeping giant, it becomes a grass roots campaign of the magnitude that we haven’t done so far.’ The charitable deduction is the 9th largest tax expenditure on the federal budget, according to the Congressional Research Service. In 2014, the amount of revenue the government would forgo from those claiming charitable deductions is estimated to reach $52 billion.”
Posted November 21, 2012
