Author Topic: Tax Reform Plan Unveiled with Numerous Provisions Impacting Churches and Charities  (Read 846 times)

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Tax Reform Plan Unveiled with Numerous Provisions Impacting Churches and Charities
March 4, 2014
Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability
Quote
Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI), Chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee, just unveiled the first major plan in decades to reform the nation’s tax code.

While the primary goals of the draft legislation, according to Camp, were to lower tax rates and to make the code simpler and fairer for businesses and families, the comprehensive draft spanning nearly 1,000 pages contains numerous proposals that would significantly impact Christ-centered churches and charities.

“I salute Rep. Camp for his desire to simplify the tax code, lower tax rates, and close loopholes,” said Dan Busby, president of ECFA. “At the same time, I am very concerned about the reduction in incentives which would negatively impact charitable giving—particularly the proposed floor on the charitable giving deduction and changes to valuation rules for gifts of property.  Additionally, eliminating the rebuttable presumption will allow the IRS to wield too much power against charities.”

The Ways & Means Committee, under Chairman Camp’s leadership, has doubled down in recent years on the goal of comprehensive tax reform. The Committee held more than 30 hearings, organized 11 bi-partisan working groups, and collected thousands of public comments before releasing the “Tax Reform Act of 2014” in late February.

But against the backdrop of a deeply divided Congress and mid-term elections approaching in November, the odds that lawmakers will move forward on tax reform this year are slim. However, the draft legislation should be taken seriously as it will likely set the stage for future discussions on tax reform.

What Should Christ-centered Organizations Know About the Latest Tax Reform Proposals?

If adopted by Congress, several proposals included in the draft legislation could have significant consequences for all Christ-centered organizations and their supporters:

• Mixed news for charitable giving incentives.  Overall, incentives to make charitable gifts could suffer somewhat due to the proposed 2% floor on charitable contributions, meaning that only gifts to charity above 2% of an individual’s adjusted gross income (AGI) could be deductible. Moreover, with the increased standard deduction and cuts to other itemized deductions such as the real estate tax reduction, only an estimated 5% of taxpayers would itemize deductions and therefore be afforded the deduction as an incentive to give to charity.

On the other hand, the Camp plan may encourage charitable giving for some individuals by extending the deadline to deduct contributions to charity from the existing year-end deadline to tax return due dates (adding four and a half months for most donors to make deductible contributions in a given tax year).

• Non-cash contributions generally limited to adjusted basis.  The Camp plan would generally limit the value of non-cash gifts to adjusted basis rather than fair market value—dealing another devastating blow to incentives for charitable giving. Under existing rules, taxpayers are often encouraged to donate non-cash gifts like real estate and closely held business interests that have appreciated over time because they can deduct these gifts at their present fair market value. ...
Read the rest at ECFA.org

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Offline Bigun

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Dave Camp, first and foremost a tax lawyer, has no wish to actually simplify the tax code.

Jut thought you ought to know that.

There IS tax legislation (HR25) currently sitting right before him in Ways and Means which, if passed into law, would start the biggest and longest lived expansion of the U.S. economy ever seen by any person alive in the U.S. today but he's not interested in that because it would destroy the method of control over the American people that the Marxist income tax provides them.

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
- J. R. R. Tolkien

Oceander

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Dave Camp, first and foremost a tax lawyer, has no wish to actually simplify the tax code.

Jut thought you ought to know that.

There IS tax legislation (HR25) currently sitting right before him in Ways and Means which, if passed into law, would start the biggest and longest lived expansion of the U.S. economy ever seen by any person alive in the U.S. today but he's not interested in that because it would destroy the method of control over the American people that the Marxist income tax provides them.



with all due respect, merely being a tax lawyer has no bearing on whether one wants to simplify the tax code.  the academic and professional literature are rife with articles from tax practitioners arguing for precisely that.

Offline Bigun

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with all due respect, merely being a tax lawyer has no bearing on whether one wants to simplify the tax code.  the academic and professional literature are rife with articles from tax practitioners arguing for precisely that.

LOL! Yeah! I know! To them Tax reform is code for tinker around the edges some more and make it even more complicated! Not interested in that!
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."
- J. R. R. Tolkien

Oceander

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LOL! Yeah! I know! To them Tax reform is code for tinker around the edges some more and make it even more complicated! Not interested in that!


Not hardly.