Write-Offs: Estate-Tax Figures; Levies Paid on Charity Business

By Elizabeth Schwinn

Wealthy Americans who paid estate taxes gave $10.1-billion to charity through their estates in 1995, according to a recent IRS analysis of tax data. The figure represents 7 percent of all giving for that year, based on figures in the 1995 edition of Giving USA, published by the American Association of Fund-Raising Counsel's Trust for Philanthropy. Sixty percent of the donors were women.
Tax-exempt groups saw profits from business activities unrelated to their missions