Charity begins with a tax break

In 2010, Americans donated an estimated $290.89 billion to charitable organizations, an amount approximately equal to 8.2% of the amount of U.S. federal government spending in 2009. The chart below shows the amounts received by various types of charitable organizations:

Who donated money to U.S. charities in 2010? And how much money did they give? Via the National Park Service (really!), who tapped the 2010 report on charitable giving produced by the American Association of Fundraising Council, through Giving USA, we have the answers to these two questions! The chart below summarize what we found:

In 2009, Americans reported nearly $34.9 billion worth of donations to private charities serving the public interest on their federal tax forms, as they claimed the federal government's tax deduction for charitable contributions on their taxes. Of all these donations, $19.14 billion, or 54.9%, were made by taxpayer households that reported $200,000 or more in annual income.

By Dylan Matthews wswest asks:

At least one part of negotiations over the fiscal cliff appears misguided: Eliminating or capping the tax deduction for charitable contributions isn’t as big a deal as some fear. Republicans have proposed raising $800 billion over 10 years by capping tax deductions for the wealthy, including highly popular breaks for mortgage interest, state and local taxes, and charitable giving. Democrats won’t hear of capping the tax deduction for charitable giving, which they say accounts for much or even most of the additional revenue.

Sir Richard Branson is one of the latest batch of billionaires to pledge to donate at least half their wealth to philanthropic causes.

(cc photo by LateNightTaskForce)