July 13, 2000 | Read Time: 1 minute
The 1969 Private Foundation Law: Historical Perspective on Its Origins and Underpinnings, by Thomas A. Troyer, is a recollection of the circumstances leading to the Tax Reform Act of 1969, which required foundations to limit their involvement in political activity and to devote a minimum percentage of their assets each year to charitable purposes. Mr. Troyer, a lawyer at the Washington firm Caplin & Drysdale, worked at the U.S. Treasury Department in the mid-1960’s and helped draft the 1965 Report on Private Foundations, which guided Congress in shaping some parts of the law. While Mr. Troyer writes that certain aspects of the 1969 legislation came into play abruptly (such as the shrinking of the charitable deduction for gifts of capital-gains property), people who view the law as “an aberrant spasm of Congressional anger at foundations” should take a closer look. Mr. Troyer writes that the problems behind the call for greater scrutiny of foundations began in the 1940’s. “By the 1960’s they — and the broadening notoriety of the foundation as an effective and pliant device for tax avoidance — were giving rise to demands for remedies far harsher than the 1969 law proved to be,” he writes.
Publisher: Council on Foundations, 1828 L Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036-5168; (202) 466-6512; fax (202) 785-3926; http://www.cof.org; 29 pages; $15 for members, $25 for others.
