September 30, 2004 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Two key members of Congress last week attempted to revive legislation designed to encourage charitable giving. But they acknowledged it appears increasingly unlikely that charity measures will pass before the end of the Congressional session.
If their efforts fail, it would be the fourth consecutive year that a major bill with provisions for nonprofit organizations has stalled in Congress.
Rep. Roy D. Blunt, Republican of Missouri, and Sen. Rick Santorum, Republican of Pennsylvania, said they were trying to persuade fellow lawmakers to approve at least two charity provisions that are part of a jobs bill that passed the House and Senate and that is expected to be reconciled by a conference committee of members from both houses.
One provision would permit people 70 1/2 and older to withdraw money from their individual retirement accounts and donate it directly to charity without being subject to income tax. The other provision would allow people who do not itemize on their income-tax returns to write off some of their charitable gifts.
The provisions were included in legislation that was passed in both the House and Senate last year.
In April 2003 the Senate passed the Charity Aid, Recovery, and Empowerment (Care) Act by a vote of 95 to 5. Five months later, the House of Representatives passed a similar charity measure, called the Charitable Giving Act, by a vote of 408 to 13. After that, however, lawmakers failed to reconcile their bills, with each side blaming the other for the impasse.
In March of this year, Senator Santorum and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, reintroduced the Care Act as an amendment to legislation popularly known as the Jobs Act (S 1637).
Representative Blunt and Senator Santorum said they now hope that members of the House-Senate conference committee will approve the two charity provisions. But because of legislative gridlock in Congress, Mr. Santorum said, the likelihood that any charity measures will pass this year are “not very high.”
