Not the kind of charity that gets you into hebbin, anyway...
Quote of note:
"I'm deeply disturbed that with a good number of supporting organizations, people are taking multimillion-dollar tax deductions for what they claim are contributions to charity, yet too often the result is a thimbleful of benefit to charity," said Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
A Tax Benefit for Big Donors Often Bypasses Idea of Charity
By STEPHANIE STROM
George B. Kaiser, a publicity-shy oilman who built a fortune estimated at $4 billion by snapping up busted petroleum businesses in Oklahoma, set aside roughly $1 billion for charitable endeavors from 2000 to the end of last year.
In exchange, he can now deflect taxes on much of his own income over the next several years.
But it turns out that only $3.4 million of the money he set aside has gone to charities. The rest is sitting in an obscure philanthropic entity called a supporting organization, so named because it is created to support a specific charity or charities.
Supporting organizations are attractive to donors because they offer the generous tax benefits associated with donating directly to charities and operate much like private foundations, but without a foundation's more onerous requirements.
Donors get those perks because they agree to relinquish control over the money. But since they appoint the organization's board, they can retain a great deal of influence over it.
Regulators and lawmakers suspect that many wealthy people have used these organizations more for tax planning than for any charitable aim and are pushing for tighter rules as part of a broader crackdown on charitable tax exemptions.
"I'm deeply disturbed that with a good number of supporting organizations, people are taking multimillion-dollar tax deductions for what they claim are contributions to charity, yet too often the result is a thimbleful of benefit to charity," said Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
