IUPUI Dean testifies on donation tax breaks

Eugene Tempel testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Thursday on the topic of charitable giving.

Tempel is the founding dean of the IU School of Philanthropy at the IUPUI
campus.

Tempel went before the House to testify about charitable gift donation. He discussed the issue of balancing the budget and illustrated the effects of giving deductions, he said.

“When you raise tax breaks,” Tempel said, “the cost of giving goes down by lowering taxes.”

Tempel worked with the Committee on Ways and Means, which is the chief tax-writing committee of the United States.

This isn’t his first time trying to go before the House on this topic either.
“Probably the first attempt was last year,” said Tempel.

The research that went into the testimony was all from the School of Philanthropy, which is the nation’s only school solely devoted to research and teaching about philanthropy, according to a press release.

The whole speech took the angle of providing the Committee on Ways and Means with objective data about the role tax policy plays in charitable giving in the U.S.

“If they decide to keep tax rates, but eliminate deductions, it will have an effect on philanthropy,” Tempel said. “The higher they go with the cap, the less of an impact there is.”

Tempel also discussed the policies and rules that affect the budget issues.

“We’re trying to solve the fiscal cliff issue that they just moved down the road,” said Tempel.

Another thing brought to light during the testimony was how higher income households give less to charity as compared to lower income families.

“The top one percent give only about 31 percent compared to the top two percent that give about 57 percent of donations,” said Tempel.

Also, the majority of gifts of a million dollars or more go to higher education.
“It goes to setting up private foundations,” said Tempel.

The testimony Tempel gave last Thursday in Washington, D.C., is available for viewing on Youtube.

“If they decide to keep tax rates but eliminate deductions, it will have a negative effect on philanthropy,” Tempel said.