May 1, 2003 | Read Time: 1 minute
For the first time in nearly two decades, deductions claimed by Americans for charitable contributions declined from one year to the next, falling from $140.7-billion in 2000 to an estimated $134-billion in 2001, a drop of 4.8 percent, the Internal Revenue Service said. The 2001 figure exceeds the $125.8-billion Americans claimed in charitable deductions in 1999. The IRS is likely to revise the figures before making them final.
Before now, the last time charitable donations by individuals declined was in 1987, after enactment of tax laws that made changes to the rules for charitable deductions. The share of individual returns that included write-offs for donations rose 1.1 percentage points in 2001, to 30.2 percent of all returns, the highest share recorded in at least a decade. The average contribution claimed dropped from $3,749 in 2000 to $3,398 in 2001.
The IRS published the data in its newly released Statistics of Income Bulletin for winter 2002-3. The report may be obtained for $34 from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, P.O. Box 371954, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15250-7954; or online at http://www.irs.gov.
