CREEDE HINSHAW: The generosity of Americans

I wonder if the so-called experts will be wrong. Headlines are announcing that, thanks to the new tax law, charitable contributions will decrease in 2018. The thinking goes like this: the new standard deduction has risen so high that many Americans will no longer find it beneficial to itemize their deductions. One of the deductions they itemized was donations to charity. So now that their contributions can’t help lower their taxes, they’ll stop giving. So goes the reasoning.

This prediction seems to me to be a cynical conclusion on the nature and motivation of giving. It assumes that people primarily give in order to avoid paying taxes.

It will remain to be seen if this prediction is true. Maybe studies have been done to support or debunk this conclusion, but I can’t help but dismiss the assumption that people give to charities primarily as a function of their tax strategy. Maybe this is true for some taxpayers in the highest income brackets, but I doubt that the ordinary citizen plans his/her tax strategy around whether or not to donate to a synagogue, church, school or museum.

It all gets down to the motivation for giving, doesn’t it? Many studies have shown that the average American gives 2 percent of his/her income to charity. That number has remained fairly constant over the last few decades, including seasons of both recession and great economic growth. These figures would seem to indicate that Americans’ giving is not necessarily tied to tax policy or deductions. I could name any number of factors that I believe have greater sway over the charitable impulse.

I suppose if I were the president, CEO or trustee of a major museum, college or university or any other cause dependent upon donations, I might be nervous about the implications of this new law. Nobody relishes having the boat rocked. But my own sense is that – regardless of their economic bracket – most peoples’ charitable giving is not tied to getting a tax break. For one thing, according to the Republicans who passed the law, most Americans are going to pay less taxes in 2018. This of itself should theoretically mean that more disposable income could result in higher charitable giving.

This weekend will provide the first opportunity in 2018 for many Americans to give a contribution simply for the joy of giving. Most of them will do so without having articulated a tax strategy for the new year. They’ll give because they believe God has called them to do so, because they trust the synagogue or church they attend, and because they believe the goals and aims of their religious group will make America a better place to live.

And so I tip my hat to the generous Americans who will be making weekly, sacrificial, gifts this year out of pure love. Nothing would make me happier at the end of 2018 than a report indicating that charitable giving increased rather than decreased.

Email columnist Creede Hinshaw, a retired Methodist minuster, at [email protected].