June 1, 2000 | Read Time: 1 minute
Two members of Congress who have seats on influential committees have introduced bills that would allow people who do not itemize on their federal income-tax returns to write off a portion of their charitable gifts.
The legislation, which is called the Neighbor to Neighbor Act, is sponsored by Jennifer Dunn, a Washington Republican who is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Paul Coverdell, a Georgia Republican who sits on the Senate Finance Committee.
Both measures would allow individuals who don’t itemize to deduct up to $500 each year for charitable gifts. Such a change would open up the possibility of a charitable deduction to the 70 per cent of taxpayers who do not itemize their tax returns.
The bills would give all taxpayers an expanded period of time in which to make charitable gifts and take deductions for them. Under current law, gifts qualify for charitable deductions for one tax year only if they are made from January 1 through December 31 of each year. The Neighbor to Neighbor Act would give taxpayers more than 15 months to make and deduct contributions for a tax year — from January 1 of one year through April 15 of the next year, the due date for filing tax returns for the previous year.
The House bill, H.R. 4379, and the Senate bill, S. 2475, may be found on Congress’s Web site, http://thomas.loc.gov.
