My taxes go to support everyone else in the community and society. These items are worth it. But more than that? I have to disagree with Patrick. Paying taxes so the government can build a soccer field at Gitmo for inmates is not worth it.
Paying taxes so the government can use 43 cents on the dollar to pay interest to China is not worth it. Paying taxes for drone strikes which often kill women and children is not worth it. Patrick makes a very good point, Taxes directly benefit those who pay taxes. Taxes are more like burden-sharing or Mutual aid than charity. These expenditures also benefit those who pay for it.
Some may see this as charity, I see it as an obligation. If we send our soldiers into harms way—whatever the reason—we are obligated to support them when they return home and to support any recovery they might need. A strict perspective would not count any taxes as being charitable.
A moderate interpretation would probably lie somewhere in between. Reducing national debt and the deficit are important and pressing issues.
But most of the national debt is not foreign owned. In , China owned 7. The remaining Federal Reserve. So it is really much easier for a rich person to donate. Remember — No matter what you are taxed, the more you make, the more you make.
Sometimes you seem to imply that people who have low income and pay little or no taxes are somehow better off than people with high incomes and high taxes. Just wait until you make lots of money and pay lots of taxes! My fear is that it becomes more difficult to give more if you are making much more due to how much you get taxed. Also, because giving is a discipline — you need to build it up routinely. Sure, we give wisely, and this takes time and our own personal energy investment personal involvement in many things we give to.
But it is possible to build wealth and to work toward financial independence while giving away a good bit of income. Your article suggests they are at odds. Having expenses like tuition and medical bills without subsidies make a difference.
In addition, I volunteer my time to charitable organizations because often that is more beneficial for them than the cash it would require to hire someone to do the job.
Hey guys, thanks for your feedback. With some giving more if including non-cash donations. Not suggesting anything at all mate. I was curious to know, so after some research, this is what I found. I guess the Democrats vs. Republicans giving debate is a whole other topic! A lot of it is tied to religious reasons. Once I started planning where every dollar went, suddenly I could give regularly. That has increased through the years as I have made more money.
I still give a fixed percentage today, though I do not track it. In addition, there are several instances of one offs, i. Katrina, Japan, etc. Great point Max and I agree. Aside from the financial mechanics, there is a huge psychological component that goes into giving more as you make more. I can tell you that is true from my own personal experiences.
Why am I going to give more. I think in order to make it a complete comparison we should try to factor in the time and expertise some people donate to charity as well. As a student I know I donated hundreds of hours to charities.
I may not have a lot of extra money although I had very little income, so as a percentage, I might have been on the low end of your average but the time I donated would have definitely been worth a lot more than most people give. If someone donates their unique skills as a professional or tradesman, this is obviously even more valuable.
Time definitely is valuable, no doubt about it. Why would anyone compare the percentage they are giving to charity with what anyone else is giving? For the most part the money stays with the church to build new buildings, pay for the best preachers and song artists, etc, etc, etc. Yes, some churches reach out to the poor but it is a very small percentage of what they take in.
Oh, by the way, when the non-working rich pay the same percentage tax on their dividend income that I pay on my wages, we can talk about income redistribution. Currently we are more adhoc donators.
We do multiple one time donations throughout the year. One of our goals though is to get us more set up on monthly donation programs.
We just need to pick the charities we believe in. Powerful article. I donate monthly, but always feel I could do much much more. My friends who make less money and still give through time and money alway inspire! Ahhh, the pension. I so wish I had a pension! As the chart above indicates.. Seems a bit low to me:. Seems consistent with the findings in my chart above of 3. My totals vary depending on how my income is doing for the year and what kind of events are going on.
And among individual givers in the U. Six out of ten U. This is different from the patterns in any other country. Even our cousins the Canadians give to charity at substantially lower rates, and at half the total volume of an American household. There are many reasons for this American distinction. Foremost is the fact that ours is the most religious nation in the industrial world.
Religion motivates giving more than any other factor. A second explanation is our deep-rooted tradition of mutual aid, which has impressed observers like Tocqueville since our founding days. Third is the potent entrepreneurial impulse in the U. But what lies beneath our high national average? Do subgroups of the U. What exactly do we know about who gives in America, and what motivates them? Dissecting who is generous and who is not can be controversial.
And not all of the research agrees. So we have methodically waded through heaps of studies and drawn out for you the clearest findings. Some of it will surprise you. There have been several attempts to compare the charitable giving of different U.
The most straightforward measures match the itemized charitable donations of local taxpayers to their incomes both pulled from official IRS figures.
The Fraser Institute and the Catalogue for Philanthropy have each used variations of this method to reveal what fraction of their annual resources residents are giving away to philanthropic causes, versus consuming or saving for themselves. Measured by how much they share out of what they have available, the most generous Americans are not generally those in high-income, urban, liberal states like California or Massachusetts.
Rather, people living in states that are more rural, conservative, religious, and moderate in income are our most generous givers. See the two charts above for listing of the top and bottom givers.
This same pattern is seen in data very different from the IRS returns. A third take on this topic was assembled by the Chronicle of Philanthropy. The researchers used the latest IRS returns available— in their most recently published update. The results? Not much different from the portraits above.
Regional results are above. Below are the top and bottom ten states for giving, according to the Chronicle calculations. On the other hand, scant-giving households are heavily concentrated in relatively wealthy and secular New England. This effect holds up not only across states but also in major cities.
For instance, denizens of Salt Lake City, Birmingham, Memphis, Nashville, and Atlanta donate from 4 to 6 percent of their discretionary income to charity, while counterparts in Boston, Hartford, and Providence average just 2 percent. Silicon Valley is legendary for its wealth, yet lags badly in charity—the Chronicle data show San Jose and San Francisco falling near the bottom among our 50 biggest cities, giving away just 2. There are about the same number of people in urban, high-education San Francisco County as there are in the rural, religious state of South Dakota, economist Arthur Brooks once noted.
And families in these two regions give almost exactly the same amount to charity every year. Data source: IRS preliminary data. Figures are rounded to the nearest dollar. While it's certainly interesting to see how much money Americans donate to charity, this data has a practical application as well. Here's one tax fact many Americans don't realize: The IRS knows how much the average person of your income level donates to charity, pays in mortgage interest, and spends on medical expenses. If your deductions in any area are significantly above-average, it could be a red flag to the IRS, and could increase your chances of an audit.
To be perfectly clear, you should take every penny worth of charitable deductions to which you are entitled. Just be prepared to back up your claims -- especially if yours might stand out to the IRS. More: Survey: 43M Americans mistakenly think carrying credit-card balance improves credit scores.
More: Bullish Republicans are spending more than Democrats under Trump. It's important to realize that this data only includes taxpayers who donated to charity and also chose to itemize deductions on their tax returns.
The deduction for charitable contributions is only available to those who itemize, and this only includes about 25 percent of the population each year.
To be sure, many taxpayers who don't itemize deductions have certainly contributed to charity -- we just have no way of knowing how much they give. Here's why this matters.
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