March 27, 2012, 5:08 pm
By Holly Hall
Legislative decisions often get delayed in a presidential-election year, but that makes 2012 a good time to contact members of Congress and their aides, says Jerry McCoy, a Washington lawyer who advises charities.
“This is a quiet time, and members are less distracted,” says Mr. McCoy. He says that point was brought home to him by two Congressional staff members who last week held an informal, off-the-record gathering with Mr. McCoy and members of the Association of Small Foundations.
One piece of legislation they discussed was a measure to expand the deduction that partnerships and other privately held businesses can get for contributing supplies such as blankets or emergency-relief products. (For more details, see a background report he wrote.)
Andrew Schulz, vice president for government relations at the Council on Foundations, agrees that this year is an opportune time for …
Read More
March 17, 2011, 7:27 pm
By Holly Hall
Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, and nine other senators have introduced a new bill to permanently extend a provision that allows people ages 70 1/2 or older to transfer up to $100,000 tax-free from their individual retirement accounts to charity.
The measure now expires at year’s end, but S557 would make it permanent. It also includes other measures charity leaders have long advocated: It lowers the minimum age of such donors to 59 1/2, removes the $100,000 cap on annual donations, and allows IRA gifts to be made to donor-advised funds and supporting organizations, which is currently not allowed.
Organizations such as the Council on Foundations, Partnership for Philanthropic Planning, and other groups that represent charities support the measure and are urging their members to lobby their Congressional representatives in support of it.
December 4, 2009, 5:46 pm
By Holly Hall
Add fund raisers to the long list of opponents to President Obama’s proposal to limit the charitable deduction for wealthy donors who make at least $200,000.
Two-thirds of fund raisers in a new poll said the proposal is bad policy. Fifty-six percent said the plan would hurt their organizations, and 35 percent said their charities would be “hurt a lot.”
Under the Obama proposal, starting in 2011, individuals earning more than $200,000 and couples earning more than $250,000 could deduct 28 cents of every dollar they donate to charity, down from 33 or 35 cents they can deduct now, depending on their tax bracket.
The money saved with the measure, an estimated $318-billion in 10 years, would help pay for changes in the health-care system, the Obama administration has said.
The poll, conducted by the American Association of Fundraising Professionals, surveyed 813 fund raisers who…
Read More
June 3, 2009, 6:38 pm
By Holly Hall
The Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, which represents nearly 5,000 nonprofit hospitals, is objecting to a plan floated by two key Senators to establish a minimum level of free care that nonprofit hospitals would be required to provide to the poor.
The policy option was included in a discussion on ways to change the health-care system.
It would place new requirements on nonprofit hospitals and punish groups that fail to meet them. Organizations that flagrantly fail to provide the minimum level of care could lose their tax-exempt status. No specific minimum was specified in the document released by Sen. Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, and Sen. Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa.
In its objections to the proposal, the association said they were upset that hospitals could not count bad debts as part of their charity care. They said many nonprofit hospitals already provide a…
Read More
February 10, 2009, 4:08 pm
By Holly Hall
The Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, which represents nearly 50,000 fund raisers at nonprofit hospitals and medical centers, has been closely following a little-known provision of the roughly $800-billion economic stimulus legislation.
The association is concerned about the House version of the legislation, now in conference committee after passage in the Senate today. The House version of the bill contains provisions that would curtail fund raisers’ ability to gain access to patient information.
Currently, for purposes of identifying potential donors, fund raisers can obtain limited patient information such as name and address under laws that protect patients’ privacy by determining who has rights to their medical records and for what purpose. By removing fund raising from the definition of health-care operations in the law, the House bill in effect would bar fund raisers…
Read More
Follow Government & Politics Watch through your favorite RSS reader.
