Debating their tax-reform plan first proposed in 1981, Hoover Institution’s Robert E. Hall and Alvin Rabushka write, “it is perverse to tax the typical American to subsidize these elite institutions,” referring to nonprofits favored by the wealthy. “But granting tax deductions for gifts is precisely such a subsidy.”
The tax-policy researcher talks to Michael E. Hartmann about the appropriate level and nature of nonprofit organizations’ Payments in Lieu of Taxation (PILOTs) to municipalities and whether they’ll become a benchmark for imposing actual outright taxes on nonprofits or perhaps even evolve into a broader-based challenge to exemption.
The tax-policy researcher talks to Michael E. Hartmann about nonprofit organizations’ Payments in Lieu of Taxation (PILOT) agreements with municipalities and what they say, if anything, about what many consider to be, and want to protect as, the inviolability of charitable tax-exemption.
Virtue, decency, civil society, democracy, and subsidy.
The Northwestern Pritzker School of Law professor talks to Michael E. Hartmann about America as both a commercial republic and a philanthropic republic; the relationship between the civil society about which Alexis de Tocqueville wrote and the tax-incentivized nonprofit sector in its current form; the wealthy and artificial intelligence; and sensible regulation and who’s best positioned to formulate it.
After discussing some positive trends in philanthropy, the nonprofit-sector leader talks to Craig Kennedy and Michael E. Hartmann about several of its problems and areas for potential reform—including making a few specific suggestions.
The legal policy fellow talks to Michael E. Hartmann about whether and if so, the degree to which constitutionally protected free speech can be limited, and whether tax-exempt groups exercising the freedom of speech have a constitutional right to their nonprofit status. He also applies the concept of “civil terrorism” to certain specific and some hypothetical circumstances.
An end-of-year collection of interesting and insightful thinking about grantmaking and giving.
A call for more scrutiny and consideration of the role of elite grantmaking institutions and what they’re doing in, and to, America.
Subcommittee on Oversight to hear from legal experts and researchers.
Rep. David Schweikert: there are continuing Congressional “conversations on charitable giving … and how we make sure it’s doing good in the world and not ultimately financing evil.”
“American taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize investments that benefit the Chinese Communist Party,” according to U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Republican from Wisconsin. “[I]nstitutions that want preferential tax treatment must choose ….”
Overall, 81% oppose such tax incentivization, according to new survey from Institute for Policy Studies and conducted by Ipsos. Ninety percent of conservatives oppose it; 80% of liberals do.
