Charitable Giving Legislation

Issue: The current tax code is not as friendly towards charitable contributions as it could be. Small donors who do not itemize their tax returns are not able to deduct their charitable contributions from their taxable income and thus have a disincentive to make contributions to organizations like The ALS Association. Furthermore, retired people pay taxes on withdrawals from their Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) and are thus discouraged from making withdrawals for charity.

Approximately 94% of ALSA's donor base is people who contribute less than $500 per year and over half of ALSA's donor base is people of retirement age. Thus the incentive to make charitable contributions by ALSA's donor base would be drastically increased by the C.A.R.E. Act.

Details of the bill

The CARE Act will:

1.) allow non-itemizers to deduct charitable cash contributions between $250 and $500 ($500 and $1000 on joint returns) from their reported taxable income;

2.) allow tax free deductions from IRAs in order to make a direct contribution to a charitable organization, if the trustee of the IRA has reached the age of 70-½;

3.) gradually increase the amount of charitable contributions that a corporation can deduct from 10% of taxable income to 20% of taxable income;

4.) allow states to transfer up to 10% of their Temporary Assistance to Needy Families funds to their Social Security Block Grant programs which ALSA chapters are eligible to apply for.

Position: Urge the Senate and the House of Representatives to bring the CARE Act (H.R. 7/ S. 476) to final passage. The ALS Association stands to greatly benefit from this legislation because it could unleash significant charitable contributions from individuals who would no longer have to pay taxes on their charitable gifts.

Key Members:
Senate Leadership
Senate Conference Committee
House Leadership
House Conference Committee