Opinion: Charities Can Set Leadership Example on Deduction Cut

Charities should accept reduced tax breaks for donors to show the kind of “desperately needed leadership” required to restore the country’s fiscal health, a former nonprofit executive asserts in a Los Angeles Times opinion column.

Nonprofit groups “would exercise their role as the public’s conscience” by endorsing such tax changes despite the potential loss of billions of dollars in contributions, writes Allan Luks, a former director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of New York City who now heads Fordham University’s Center for Nonprofit Leaders.

Doing so could “embarrass and provoke” corporations, banks, Social Security and Medicare advocates, and other interest groups “to accept government spending cuts and tax increases proposed for their own areas, as proof of their genuine interest in jump-starting the economic recovery,” Mr. Luks says.