Comments on: Must-Read Economic News for NoQuarter’s First Responders

By: 13 Bankers and an American Oligarchy : NO QUARTER

13 Bankers and an American Oligarchy : NO QUARTER — Tue, 04 May 2010 12:35:29 +0000

[...] article also caught my eye when I did a financial round-up, but without the detail Linda brought to [...]

By: Hot News » Monica Conyers

Hot News » Monica Conyers — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 00:40:50 +0000

[...] GO HOME! | Angry White Dude…nancynall.com » Blog Archive » Literary criticism….Must-Read Economic News for NoQuarter’s First Responders : NO QUARTER…Detroit City Council President Has History Of Combative Behavior « Quipster…Martha Reeves: [...]

By: foxyladi14

foxyladi14 — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 22:29:45 +0000

i have always supported the charities as much as i could still do.got an envelope sitting here now to go out in the mail tomorrow.
i also never claim that on my tax returns

By: LisaB

LisaB — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 20:18:44 +0000

Indeed. Just wait for a more in depth piece about that article later from another writer.

You called it right. Banana Republic.

By: bayareavoter

bayareavoter — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 17:09:21 +0000

We take the deduction for charitable donations. Why not? And as people watch their savings disappear they will have less to give–why take away the deduction now?

More important — couple this with the threat to eliminate the mortgage deduction and to tax health benefits and this is a huge tax increase on the upper and middle class.

Why do they want to penalize those who have managed to keep their jobs and have paid a mortgage they could afford?

Typical 0Zero thinking. So depressing.

By: bayareavoter

bayareavoter — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 17:02:52 +0000

We take the charitable deduction. Why not? And with our savings disappearing it’s likely we will have less to give, so why take away the deduction at this time?

THIS IS BIGGER THAN THIS ONE DEDUCTION: Couple the elimination of the donation deduction with his threat to eliminate the mortgage deduction and to tax those health benefits you receive from your job and this is a HUGE TAX INCREASE on the middle and upper middle class.

So now people who continue to pay their mortgages and to be fortunate enough to still have jobs with benefits will pay more taxes for staying the course with a mortgage they could afford and a job they must keep.

Great.

By: I'm a Linda too

I'm a Linda too — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 16:29:10 +0000

Excellent post LisaB

By: Ellis

Ellis — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 15:03:25 +0000

What any group that relies on contributions can tell you is: upper-income people donate a smaller percentage of their income/wealth to charities than do lower-income/lower-wealth individuals. The dollar amount from high-income people is larger but the relative impact on their income is lower. An interesting fact that ties into the relatively low donations from 0bama. See below. I’ve tried to properly credit the author. Apologies if I’ve failed.

By RACHEL EMMA SILVERMAN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
April 22, 2004; Page D2
The rich are different. They don’t give as much to charity as the less well-off, at least by
one measurement.
Many wealthy taxpayers gave a smaller percentage of their investment assets to charity
than those in lower wealth groups, according to a study released today by the NewTithing
Group, a nonprofit philanthropy research group based in San Francisco.
People have long measured their giving as a percentage of income, rather than assets.
Religious groups, for example, often encourage members to earmark a percentage of their
income to charity. However, many wealthy people hold far more in their investment
portfolios than they earn in income, so wealth might be a better measure of giving for
them, according to NewTithing.
According to the report, which is based on 2001 data, well-heeled taxpayers who earn
adjusted gross incomes between $200,000 and $10 million, with average investment
assets ranging from $1.7 million to $46 million, aren’t as charitable as those in lower
income groups when donations are measured as a percentage of investment assets.
However, those at the top of the wealth pyramid — with incomes greater than $10 million
– gave a higher percentage of their assets to charity compared with almost all other
income brackets. This implies that the super-rich take their total estates into account
when making gifts to charity.
Tax-return filers who earned between $200,000 and $10 million gave only 0.48% of their
investment assets to charity in 2001. By contrast, less affluent taxpayers who earned
$25,000 to $200,000 in income, and who held average investment assets from $83,000 to
$490,000, gave about 1.01% of their wealth to charity.
Wealthier groups appear more generous when their giving is measured as a percentage of
income, rather than assets. Filers with adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 to $10 million
donated about 3.1% of their incomes to charity, compared with only 2.8% of income for
filers with incomes of $25,000 to $200,000.

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 14:19:58 +0000

Thanks for these postings, LisaB. The Atlantic read will be particularly sobering and prescient if these financial conglomerates are not re-regulated while they are down, as a condition of being fed at the govt trough, instead of fattening them up and then attempting to impose controls.

If banks and other financial institutions are not shrunk and cleaned up to the point they can resume normal credit, the small but steady rises in other indicators of consumer confidence, spending, manufacturing orders, home sales etc over the last couple months aren not going to amount to a damned thing except to divert Americans attention yet again so they can be robbed at the other end.

By: oowawa

oowawa — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 14:14:09 +0000

Yes Ferd, quite an accomplishment! Only problem is, we don’t produce hardly any bananas, so we will have a hard time even competing in the “Banana Republic” category. In fact, we could accurately replace our National Anthem with the ancient pop jingle:

Yes! We have no bananas,
We have no bananas today!!!

By: oowawa

oowawa — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 14:06:05 +0000

You may rail against the great orator

The “great orator”? Wasn’t there somebody else who was called by that presumptuous title? I would prefer something a little more accurate and down-to-earth, like “The Great Teleprompter Reader.”

By: Sassy

Sassy — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 14:03:38 +0000

I recently watched a portion of the Senate budget mark-up on C-Span.
The Republicans on at least four occasions tried to bring up “points of order” on provisions in this run-away spending.
They were summarily defeated, so the Democrats own the store now, or robbed it!

By: Sassy

Sassy — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 13:54:36 +0000

Very good response from daisyjane!
Like her, we always filed the short form, and never took receipts for our donations.
Those with more wealth may prefer to fund a women’s shelter, food bank, or literacy program, as opposed to buying more military hardware!
Once the government collects our taxes, we have lost any input to their use!

By: betty

betty — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 13:36:19 +0000

Charitable giving is tax deductible so giving is a way to spend your money as you want instead of letting the government take it for its own use, ie: attracting bribes, paying off friends, setting up family members, …

We should all learn how to redirect our tax money. Maybe we could raise the number of dependants to 20, then figure out our taxes in November and donate that amount to anyplace but NPR.

By: devildog666

devildog666 — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 12:36:58 +0000

many of these not for profit organisations,spend as much as 90% on adminastrative and “other” expenditures…

Yeah, we can really count on the government to be efficient, but that’s OK. Let’s just make all non government charities illegal that should solve the problem.

There are many charities that are very efficient, like the Salvation Army.