Once again, charity is just a tax dodge

[Loren Pechtel]

Nonprofit hospitals receive billions more in tax breaks than they invest in their communities

Of 2,425 nonprofit hospitals evaluated, 80% spent less on financial assistance and community investment than the estimated value of their tax breaks

lownhospitalsindex.org

The tax breaks are bigger than the charity they are performing. I'm not at all surprised, most "charity" isn't.

 

[Janice Rael]

Nobody is against IRS Code 501(c)(3). All religions from secular to theistic, all churches, all nonprofits, and all charitable organizations in the USA are equally valid under law.

No organizations oppose it, neither do their donors.

So who cares? I mean, people who matter. Donors.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Nonprofit hospitals receive billions more in tax breaks than they invest in their communities

Of 2,425 nonprofit hospitals evaluated, 80% spent less on financial assistance and community investment than the estimated value of their tax breaks

lownhospitalsindex.org

The tax breaks are bigger than the charity they are performing. I'm not at all surprised, most "charity" isn't.

Loren, where's the baby?

 

[Elixir]

Nobody is against IRS Code 501(c)(3).

Cancelled again. *sigh*

 

[Jarhyn]

Nobody is against IRS Code 501(c)(3).

Cancelled again. *sigh*

Personally, I think that if people want to have tax breaks for charity, they should have to actually open their books and hire a competent accountant and be subject to audit.

If they can't demonstrate that the contributions are going to meet their charitable goals as an organization, which they should be required to post to perspective donors in well communicated and clear terms as a term required for tax exemption, then they should lose their status and have a tax burden commensurate with the margin of their failure.

 

[ZiprHead]

I'm not sure I understand what is going on here. I don't know of any charities where 100% of the donations are used completely on the subject of the charity. There are always administrative costs. However, I'm open to be shown otherwise about this story.

 

[Jarhyn]

I'm not sure I understand what is going on here. I don't know of any charities where 100% of the donations are used completely on the subject of the charity. There are always administrative costs. However, I'm open to be shown otherwise about this story.

I'm more concerned with the need to present some legally necessary ratio of charity to administrative costs, a measure of the objective quality of the charity itself.

I think that this needs to be well documented in terms of administrative costs, and this needs to be well communicated up front in prominent text, alongside some posted requirement of charitable output.

The expectation would not be 100% so much as "state whatever % clearly, expect audits to know whether you met those goals, and accept penalties and taxes if you miss it"

Edit: heck, some charity types may chronically have low % costs just because of the difficulty of administering whatever form of charitable aid. Even having a 1-2% charitable ratio might be acceptable, as long as the reasons are well communicated and accepted by the people making the determination of an organization's charitable status.

The requirement I have is transparency! That doesn't happen with religious orgs.

 

[Janice Rael]

The requirement I have is transparency! That doesn't happen with religious orgs.

Yes it does. IRS Code 501(c)(3) covers registered churches and nonprofits equally. The nonprofits and the churches have the exact same requirements under law.

@Jarhyn - hi, I'm Janice. You said:

Personally, I think that if people want to have tax breaks for charity, they should have to actually open their books and hire a competent accountant and be subject to audit.

We may have any personal feelings we wish. Our feelings, ideas, morals, ethics, and/or desires for transparency for 501(c)(3)s will not alter the tax code or the way the IRS chooses to enforce its code.

The law is the law, so says the United States Supreme Court. None of us are more important than those nine permanent people. We can take it up with Coke Can Clarence and Supreme Sam, but, Anti-Abortion Amy and Beer-Swilling Brett do not seem likely to budge. Justice John, not likely to budge. The others? I do not know enough about them to wonder if they find fault with the IRS

Besides. We do not have legal standing to take up any such case.

 

[Jarhyn]

Personally, I think that if people want to have tax breaks for charity, they should have to actually open their books and hire a competent accountant and be subject to audit.

We may have any personal feelings we wish. Our feelings, ideas, morals, ethics, and/or desires for transparency for 501(c)(3)s will not alter the tax code or the way the IRS chooses to enforce its code.

Last I knew, morals, ethics, and desires for transparency will often translate into governmental change, especially depending on political activities that express such.

You have discussed "is" and I have discussed "ought" and the bridge from an "ought" to an "is" is decisive action.

This first, the discussion ought not be about "is" but about "ought". Bringing up "is" before "ought" is not useful.

 

[Elixir]

None of us are more important than those nine permanent people.

‘Cept maybe the guy who appointed three of them.
/derail

 

[Janice Rael]

Hi, I'm not sure what your post means, but I am sure of who is on the US Supreme Court and who the Heritage Foundation is. I can't link to the Project 2025 info.

After the Wedge Document and the lack of interest in West Virginia by climate change nonprofits, I am pretty sure that nobody is going to change IRS Code 501(c)(3) or how it is enforced by the IRS.

I invite everyone to prove me wrong. Identity the organizations that operate in order to alter IRS code 501(c)(3). They would have determined leadership, I would want to know about their efforts and achievements.

Thanks for helping a confused crazy chaos in crisis.

 

[bilby]

I'm more concerned with the need to present some legally necessary ratio of charity to administrative costs, a measure of the objective quality of the charity itself.

Sadly, such a measure does not reflect the objective quality of a charity.

It can expose blatant fraud, in which administrators set up charities latgely to enrich themselves, rather than benefit the supposed reipients of the donors' goodwill; But it cannot discriminate between charities that act in the genuine interests of the recipient, and those that act in ways that are either not beneficial, or are actively harmful, but which are not financially beneficial to the administrators.

If I give $100 to "Help the starving people in Africa", and $99 goes to some guy in a suit in London, Paris, or New York, then clearly something is deeply wrong.

But if I give $100 to "Help the starving people in Africa", and as a result a village on the verge of famine receives $80 of stuff, while the guy in the suit gets $20, then maybe that's OK.

Maybe.

If the "stuff" in question is food. Or medicine. Or farming supplies.

What if the "stuff" is $80 worth of Bibles? What if the "stuff" is Evangelical Christian propaganda that inspires the villagers to realise that their hardships are due to the witchcraft being practised by their non-Christian neighbours? What if the "stuff" is a handful of starry-eyed know-nothing teenaged American devotees of Christianity, who have come as missionaries to tell the villagers that they need to find God?

Are these things really charity? In most western jurisdictions, the law says they are (I am not familiar with US law, but I know that promotion of religion is one of the defined "charitable acts" in most Commonwealth countries).

For example, section 3 of the Charities Act 2011 (England and Wales) sets out the following descriptions of purposes a charity can legally have (my bold):

(1)A purpose falls within this subsection if it falls within any of the following descriptions of purposes—

(a) the prevention or relief of poverty;​

​

(b) the advancement of education;​

​

(c) the advancement of religion;​

​

(d) the advancement of health or the saving of lives;​

​

(e) the advancement of citizenship or community development;​

​

(f) the advancement of the arts, culture, heritage or science;​

​

(g) the advancement of amateur sport;​

​

(h) the advancement of human rights, conflict resolution or reconciliation or the promotion of religious or racial harmony or equality and diversity;​

​

(i) the advancement of environmental protection or improvement;​

​

(j) the relief of those in need because of youth, age, ill-health, disability, financial hardship or other disadvantage;​

​

(k) the advancement of animal welfare;​

​

(l) the promotion of the efficiency of the armed forces of the Crown or of the efficiency of the police, fire and rescue services or ambulance services;​

​

(m) any other purposes—​

​

(i) that are not within paragraphs (a) to (l) but are recognised as charitable purposes by virtue of section 5 (recreational and similar trusts, etc.) or under the old law,​

​

(ii) that may reasonably be regarded as analogous to, or within the spirit of, any purposes falling within any of paragraphs (a) to (l) or sub-paragraph (i), or​

​

(iii) that may reasonably be regarded as analogous to, or within the spirit of, any purposes which have been recognised, under the law relating to charities in England and Wales, as falling within sub-paragraph (ii) or this sub-paragraph.​

​

(2) In subsection (1)—​

​

(a) in paragraph (c), “religion” includes—​

​

(i) a religion which involves belief in more than one god, and​

​

(ii) a religion which does not involve belief in a god,​

​

(b) in paragraph (d), “the advancement of health” includes the prevention or relief of sickness, disease or human suffering,​

​

(c) paragraph (e) includes—​

​

(i) rural or urban regeneration, and​

​

(ii) the promotion of civic responsibility, volunteering, the voluntary sector or the effectiveness or efficiency of charities,​

​

(d) in paragraph (g), “sport” means sports or games which promote health by involving physical or mental skill or exertion,​

​

(e) paragraph (j) includes relief given by the provision of accommodation or care to the persons mentioned in that paragraph, and​

​

(f) in paragraph (l), “fire and rescue services” means services provided by fire and rescue authorities under Part 2 of the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004.​

​

(3) Where any of the terms used in any of paragraphs (a) to (l) of subsection (1), or in subsection (2), has a particular meaning under the law relating to charities in England and Wales, the term is to be taken as having the same meaning where it appears in that provision.​

​

(4) In subsection (1)(m)(i), “the old law” means the law relating to charities in England and Wales as in force immediately before 1 April 2008.​

A charity in England and Wales can, under the terms of this Act, be solely invested in "the advancement of religion", to the exclusion of any other charitable behaviours. Evangelism is thus decined as a charitable act in and of itself, and funds donated to "help" a specific group of people can be lawfully entirely expended on preaching to them.

Whether the exact nature of this "help" is communicated to the donors is up to the administrators of the "charity".

But as we all know that all religious people are good, noble, and honest, at all times, and in all things, the law need not include any requirements for this to be explicitly disclosed. Apparently.

 

[Lion IRC]

Nonprofit hospitals receive billions more in tax breaks than they invest in their communities

Of 2,425 nonprofit hospitals evaluated, 80% spent less on financial assistance and community investment than the estimated value of their tax breaks

lownhospitalsindex.org

The tax breaks are bigger than the charity they are performing. I'm not at all surprised, most "charity" isn't.

The methodology is so subjective and selective it's about as worthless as an opinion. (Someone is wrong on the internet.)

Quibbling about what does or doesn't meet your idea of community benefit misses the point that such tax breaks are simple economic rationalism.

"A 2019 report by the respected accounting firm Ernst and Young demonstrates that for every dollar invested in non-profit hospitals and health systems through the federal tax exemption, $11 in benefits is delivered back to communities"

 

[Jarhyn]

I'm more concerned with the need to present some legally necessary ratio of charity to administrative costs, a measure of the objective quality of the charity itself.

Sadly, such a measure does not reflect the objective quality of a charity.

It can expose blatant fraud, in which administrators set up charities latgely to enrich themselves, rather than benefit the supposed reipients of the donors' goodwill; But it cannot discriminate between charities that act in the genuine interests of the recipient, and those that act in ways that are either not beneficial, or are actively harmful, but which are not financially beneficial to the administrators.

If I give $100 to "Help the starving people in Africa", and $99 goes to some guy in a suit in London, Paris, or New York, then clearly something is deeply wrong.

But if I give $100 to "Help the starving people in Africa", and as a result a village on the verge of famine receives $80 of stuff, while the guy in the suit gets $20, then maybe that's OK.

Maybe.

If the "stuff" in question is food. Or medicine. Or farming supplies.

What if the "stuff" is $80 worth of Bibles? What if the "stuff" is Evangelical Christian propaganda that inspires the villagers to realise that their hardships are due to the witchcraft being practised by their non-Christian neighbours? What if the "stuff" is a handful of starry-eyed know-nothing teenaged American devotees of Christianity, who have come as missionaries to tell the villagers that they need to find God?

Are these things really charity? In most western jurisdictions, the law says they are (I am not familiar with US law, but I know that promotion of religion is one of the defined "charitable acts" in most Commonwealth countries).

For example, section 3 of the Charities Act 2011 (England and Wales) sets out the following descriptions of purposes a charity can legally have (my bold):

(1)A purpose falls within this subsection if it falls within any of the following descriptions of purposes—

(a) the prevention or relief of poverty;​

​

(b) the advancement of education;​

​

(c) the advancement of religion;​

​

(d) the advancement of health or the saving of lives;​

​

(e) the advancement of citizenship or community development;​

​

(f) the advancement of the arts, culture, heritage or science;​

​

(g) the advancement of amateur sport;​

​

(h) the advancement of human rights, conflict resolution or reconciliation or the promotion of religious or racial harmony or equality and diversity;​

​

(i) the advancement of environmental protection or improvement;​

​

(j) the relief of those in need because of youth, age, ill-health, disability, financial hardship or other disadvantage;​

​

(k) the advancement of animal welfare;​

​

(l) the promotion of the efficiency of the armed forces of the Crown or of the efficiency of the police, fire and rescue services or ambulance services;​

​

(m) any other purposes—​

​

(i) that are not within paragraphs (a) to (l) but are recognised as charitable purposes by virtue of section 5 (recreational and similar trusts, etc.) or under the old law,​

​

(ii) that may reasonably be regarded as analogous to, or within the spirit of, any purposes falling within any of paragraphs (a) to (l) or sub-paragraph (i), or​

​

(iii) that may reasonably be regarded as analogous to, or within the spirit of, any purposes which have been recognised, under the law relating to charities in England and Wales, as falling within sub-paragraph (ii) or this sub-paragraph.​

​

(2) In subsection (1)—​

​

(a) in paragraph (c), “religion” includes—​

​

(i) a religion which involves belief in more than one god, and​

​

(ii) a religion which does not involve belief in a god,​

​

(b) in paragraph (d), “the advancement of health” includes the prevention or relief of sickness, disease or human suffering,​

​

(c) paragraph (e) includes—​

​

(i) rural or urban regeneration, and​

​

(ii) the promotion of civic responsibility, volunteering, the voluntary sector or the effectiveness or efficiency of charities,​

​

(d) in paragraph (g), “sport” means sports or games which promote health by involving physical or mental skill or exertion,​

​

(e) paragraph (j) includes relief given by the provision of accommodation or care to the persons mentioned in that paragraph, and​

​

(f) in paragraph (l), “fire and rescue services” means services provided by fire and rescue authorities under Part 2 of the Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004.​

​

(3) Where any of the terms used in any of paragraphs (a) to (l) of subsection (1), or in subsection (2), has a particular meaning under the law relating to charities in England and Wales, the term is to be taken as having the same meaning where it appears in that provision.​

​

(4) In subsection (1)(m)(i), “the old law” means the law relating to charities in England and Wales as in force immediately before 1 April 2008.​

A charity in England and Wales can, under the terms of this Act, be solely invested in "the advancement of religion", to the exclusion of any other charitable behaviours. Evangelism is thus decined as a charitable act in and of itself, and funds donated to "help" a specific group of people can be lawfully entirely expended on preaching to them.

Whether the exact nature of this "help" is communicated to the donors is up to the administrators of the "charity".

But as we all know that all religious people are good, noble, and honest, at all times, and in all things, the law need not include any requirements for this to be explicitly disclosed. Apparently.

This why audits.

I want to know if they're just laundering mass produced printing to a Bible publisher, too, or whether they're sending shit that has actual survival value like food.

I would be alright depending on the textbook publisher, if they were for actual legitimate textbooks.

I think that charitable donations ought be audited to public record. It is the least burden they can accept for being exempt of taxes.

I'll leave it up to those who can freely identify that bibles are at best something you can burn at night to stay warm in cold climates that the result of an audit shows a poor commitment to real principles of charity.