We could also just tax the income used to make the donations at similar levels to prior top brackets and not depend on philanthropy as a means to fund public institutions or social safety nets.

That puts the decision on where to put public good will and non-profitable money sinks solely into the machine of government bureaucracy, which I don't think would be very effective.

Currently we incentivize private individual donations, and that lets a lot of things happen quickly and without the requirement of soliciting the permission of a bottlenecked council for anything to happen.

Government is often significantly more effective at spending money for charitable works than private charities due to all the overhead involved in running charities. Further, as a private individual I dislike that my tax money is used to in part fund charities that I strongly disagree with.

If you want to use your money to support some private crusade that’s fine, but why must we support anything anyone thinks as a worthy cause? It’s in effect a blank check without meaningful oversight. Their are for example homeopathy charities whose donations are tax deductible.

Isn't budget a part of elections platform, and so democracy? Because certainly when it comes to giving money to people bureaucracy becomes a factor, but then rather than redistributing money, things that you could spend tax money on:

- Universal healthcare - Free education - Funding homeless assistance programs - Employment insurance - UBI

(granted these last 2 are pretty much just redistributing money)

The question is whether you want the few billionaires to decide where to spend the money, or everyone (that is, people who haven't been disenfranchised).

AND THEN arguably given the polarization of the US today, I can understand that anyone feels frisky in raising the taxes to found the other side's ideas (being republicans not wanting to fund healthcare or democrats not wanting to fund a wall)

Perhaps a slight twist on that would be to be if society as a whole considered paying taxes as if it were "pay it forward" philanthropy.

In fact if the government recognized honest taxpayers as if they were forward thinking "philanthropic donors" (replete with award dinners for the million dollar donors) - perhaps there'd be more excitement for April 15th - and such people would not be so quick to figure out ways to avoid paying taxes.

Fun thought video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTAE5m3ZO2E

It would help if we could decide what our taxes got allocated to directly. Like 50‰ nasa 0% racist border wall. I hate paying my taxes because it's going to bullshit like that federally. Or locally, funding mismanaged pensions.

That'd be an interesting additional feature - a minimum 50% toward general funds and the remaining 50% to the government programs of your choice.

I would get rid of all tax deductions period, but in the case of non anonymous donations, the chance of quid pro quo and inability to prove it is so high, that I just view it as a tax loophole for the rich.

If it lowers the amount people donate, then it proves my point...that people were intending to get something in return, hence not a donation.

Unless there's actual corruption involved (like giving to a "charity" that actually fuels your personal expenses), how could a deductible gift be used a tax loophole?

I've heard the misconception that one could use a deduction to bump yourself into a lower tax rate on your entire income, and therefore come out ahead, but that's not how U.S. federal income tax rates work.

Donate to a selective school, and your descendants get higher probability of admission.

It's like the government is matching your donations, and in the case of certain charities, that means the government is effectively funding lobbyists for you.

"Loopholes" are often in the eye of the beholder.

So it's better that a hospital not get Beinhoff's hundred million dollars, since you don't like his need for legacy?

If society wants the hospital to exist and have funding, then society can decide to raise taxes to pay for it.

I don't care about Benioff's need for legacy. I care about reducing corruption, which non anonymous tax deductible donations enable.

I think your idea of controlling "corruption" is simplistic if your argument ends with "let government handle the money".

Absolutely a good comment. Tax the rich, replace philanthropy with Democracy. Pathetic that PP is getting downvotes.

Get off the high horse. He didn't explain his original position at all, and frankly it's an ideal that seems very unrealistic. I agree that we should be taxing the ultra-rich a lot more, but "prohibiting donations that have names attached" is legislating morality as much as "don't buy liquor on Sundays".

I never wrote non anonymous donations should be prohibited.