While the cameras roll and the President and Congress snarl about AIG and bonuses a travesty of much greater significance in real dollar terms has quietly been allowed to occur. The Obama administration’s tax plan removes charitable giving incentives for America’s wealthiest citizens, a matter that will result in billions less in philanthropy starting this year.
I have received three guide dogs directly as a result of charitable giving. Guiding Eyes for the Blind receives no government money. None. Zip. Nada. And while almost everyone can agree that making a donation to a top rate guide dog training program is unambiguously good one can surely acknowledge that a tax policy that makes it harder for those with deep pockets to make charitable donations is bad no matter how you slice it.
Each time the stock market drops 100 points estimates are that charitable giving loses a billion dollars in donations. Given the plunge that’s happened since September we can well imagine there will be 40 to 50 billion less in philanthropic donations in 2009and that’s of course a conservative estimate that doesn’t factor the new Obama tax plan into the mix. The truth is no one knows what the Obama tax plan is going to do to charitable giving. But no one can argue that its gonna be good.
There. Now I’ve done it. I sound like a Republican. I’ll take the chance. Creating disincentives for philanthropic giving is a big mistake.
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 
You raise a great point. I was at a fund raiser for a non profit adaptive ski program and it appeared to me that donations from heavy hitters was way off.
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