IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/pubeco/v129y2015icp63-76.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Has regulation of charitable foundations thrown the baby out with the bath water?

Author

Listed:
  • Marx, Benjamin M.

Abstract

Regulations to curb tax avoidance and evasion through charitable foundations have been in place since the Tax Reform Act of 1969. Newly-compiled longitudinal data makes it possible to estimate the effects of these regulations by comparing affected and unaffected foundations before and after the reform. Donations and entry dropped precipitously. Proxy variables suggest significant deterrence of abuses, but half of the decline in donations can be explained by the increased cost of running a foundation. The results highlight the potential for large reductions in the benefits of regulation when the cost of compliance affects externality-producing actions such as charitable giving.

Suggested Citation

  • Marx, Benjamin M., 2015. "Has regulation of charitable foundations thrown the baby out with the bath water?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 63-76.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:129:y:2015:i:c:p:63-76
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2015.07.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004727271500122X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2015.07.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Meer, Jonathan, 2014. "Effects of the price of charitable giving: Evidence from an online crowdfunding platform," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 113-124.
    2. Huck, Steffen & Rasul, Imran, 2011. "Matched fundraising: Evidence from a natural field experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(5-6), pages 351-362, June.
    3. Yermack, David, 2009. "Deductio' ad absurdum: CEOs donating their own stock to their own family foundations," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 107-123, October.
    4. Randolph, William C, 1995. "Dynamic Income, Progressive Taxes, and the Timing of Charitable Contributions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(4), pages 709-738, August.
    5. Okten, Cagla & Weisbrod, Burton A., 2000. "Determinants of donations in private nonprofit markets," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 255-272, February.
    6. Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2003. "Income Inequality in the United States, 1913–1998," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 1-41.
    7. Mark Ottoni-Wilhelm & Lise Vesterlund & Huan Xie, 2017. "Why Do People Give? Testing Pure and Impure Altruism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(11), pages 3617-3633, November.
    8. Bakija, Jon & Heim, Bradley T., 2011. "How Does Charitable Giving Respond to Incentives and Income? New Estimates From Panel Data," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 64(2), pages 615-650, June.
    9. Gerald E. Auten & Holger Sieg & Charles T. Clotfelter, 2002. "Charitable Giving, Income, and Taxes: An Analysis of Panel Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 371-382, March.
    10. William H. Smith & Carolyn P. Chiechi, 1974. "Private Foundations: Before and After the Tax Reform Act of 1969," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 969594, September.
    11. Meer, Jonathan, 2011. "Brother, can you spare a dime? Peer pressure in charitable solicitation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 926-941.
    12. Clotfelter, Charles T., 1985. "Federal Tax Policy and Charitable Giving," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226110486.
    13. Khanna, Jyoti & Posnett, John & Sandler, Todd, 1995. "Charity donations in the UK: New evidence based on panel data," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 257-272, February.
    14. Diamond, Peter, 2006. "Optimal tax treatment of private contributions for public goods with and without warm glow preferences," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(4-5), pages 897-919, May.
    15. Charles T. Clotfelter, 1985. "Federal Tax Policy and Charitable Giving," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number clot85-1.
    16. John R. Labovitz, 1974. "The Impact of the Private Foundation Provisions of the Tax Reform Act of 1969: Early Empirical Measurements," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 63-106, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marx, Benjamin M., 2018. "The Cost of Requiring Charities to Report Financial Information," MPRA Paper 88660, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Thomas S. Conkling, 2020. "Compliance and competition with heterogeneous service providers: the federal Lifeline program," Journal of Regulatory Economics, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 74-104, February.
    3. Jonathan Meer, 2017. "Are overhead costs a good guide for charitable giving?," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 329-329, January.
    4. Oxley, Jonathan, 2022. "Does additional mandatory reporting alter charity or donor behavior? Examining the 2006 Pension Protection Act," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 738-751.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Paskalev, Zdravko & Yildirim, Huseyin, 2017. "A theory of outsourced fundraising: Why dollars turn into “Pennies for Charity”," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 1-18.
    2. Duquette, Nicolas J., 2016. "Do tax incentives affect charitable contributions? Evidence from public charities' reported revenues," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 51-69.
    3. Meer, Jonathan, 2014. "Effects of the price of charitable giving: Evidence from an online crowdfunding platform," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 113-124.
    4. Roman M. Sheremeta & Neslihan Uler, 2021. "The impact of taxes and wasteful government spending on giving," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 24(2), pages 355-386, June.
    5. Zachary Halberstam & James R. Hines Jr., 2023. "Quality-Aware Tax Incentives for Charitable Contributions," CESifo Working Paper Series 10250, CESifo.
    6. Nathalie Monnet & Ugo Panizza, 2017. "A Note on the Economics of Philanthropy," IHEID Working Papers 19-2017, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    7. Zhiyong An, 2015. "On the sufficiency of using the elasticity of taxable income to calculate deadweight loss: the implications of charitable giving and warm glow," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 22(6), pages 1040-1047, December.
    8. Marius A. K. Ring & Thor Olav Thoresen, 2022. "Wealth Taxation and Charitable Giving," CESifo Working Paper Series 9700, CESifo.
    9. Hyeon Park, 2023. "Giving and volunteering over a lifecycle," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 335-369, March.
    10. Tiefenbach, Tim & Kohlbacher, Florian, 2015. "Disasters, donations, and tax law changes: Disentangling effects on subjective well-being by exploiting a natural experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 94-112.
    11. Peter G. Backus & Nicky L. Grant, 2019. "How sensitive is the average taxpayer to changes in the tax-price of giving?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 26(2), pages 317-356, April.
    12. Asatryan, Zareh & Joulfaian, David, 2022. "Taxes and Business Philanthropy in Armenia," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 914-930.
    13. Emmanuel Saez, 2017. "Taxing the Rich More: Preliminary Evidence from the 2013 Tax Increase," Tax Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(1), pages 71-120.
    14. Jonathan Meer & Benjamin A. Priday, 2020. "Tax Prices and Charitable Giving: Projected Changes in Donations under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act," Tax Policy and the Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 113-138.
    15. Dajung Jun, 2019. "The Effects of the Dependent Health Insurance Coverage Mandates on Fathers’ Job Mobility and Compensation," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2019n09, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    16. Anubhav Gupta & Thomas Luke Spreen, 2024. "Do tax credits benefit charities? Evidence from two states," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 42(1), pages 94-109, January.
    17. Kimberley Scharf & Sarah Smith, 2015. "The price elasticity of charitable giving: does the form of tax relief matter?," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 22(2), pages 330-352, April.
    18. Ross Hickey & Brad Minaker & A. Abigail Payne & Joanne Roberts & Justin Smith, 2023. "The Effect of Tax Price on Donations: Evidence from Canada," National Tax Journal, University of Chicago Press, vol. 76(2), pages 291-315.
    19. Bassi, Vittorio & Huck, Steffen & Rasul, Imran, 2017. "A note on charitable giving by corporates and aristocrats: Evidence from a field experiment," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 66, pages 104-111.
    20. Daniel Hungerman & Mark Ottoni-Wilhelm, 2016. "What is the Price Elasticity of Charitable Giving? Toward a Reconciliation of Disparate Estimates," Artefactual Field Experiments 00557, The Field Experiments Website.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:129:y:2015:i:c:p:63-76. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505578 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.