Opinion: Congress Should Curb ‘Wasteful’ Charity Deductions

The government’s version of charitable giving—tax deductions for donations—too often offers little or no public benefit, a Boston College law professor argues in a New York Times opinion piece.

Ray D. Madoff cites as “wasteful” deductions tax breaks on giving to nonprofit hospitals, whose “activities are often indistinguishable from those of for-profit hospitals”; conservation easements, designed to foster environmental protection but sometimes used to subsidize golf courses; and gifts to donor-advised funds that yield immediate tax benefits but can sit for years before being disbursed to charity.

“There is an easy legislative fix for each of these problems,” Ms. Madoff writes. She endorses proposals to set charity-care requirements for tax-exempt hospitals, make golf courses ineligible for the conservation easement deduction, and impose a seven-year payout obligation for donor-advised funds.

Read a Chronicle of Philanthropy article on research into how curbing charity tax breaks could affect giving.