Identifying Tax Effects on Charitable Giving

Abstract

This paper estimates the effects of three federal tax acts—the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (H.R. 1836), the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (H.R. 2), and the Working Families Tax Relief Act of 2004 (H.R. 1308)—on charitable giving, and offers four extensions relative to previous work. First, we use new data—the Center on Philanthropy Panel Study, the philanthropy module in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics—that permit the estimation of the effect of switches in itemization status on giving. This is important because switches permit a direct answer to the question: How much of an increase in charitable giving is caused by tax deductibility? Second, the new data permit the estimation of tax effects on charitable giving to secular charities as well as to religious organizations. This is important because the main policy question in the literature on taxes and giving is to evaluate “treasury efficiency”—whether the Treasury can cause more money to flow to charitable organizations by allowing deductibility of giving than by eliminating deductibility and sending the increased tax revenue directly to charitable organizations. By using secular giving, we can focus on the type of giving most relevant to this policy question. Third, the new data allow for improved methodological approaches over past studies. Fourth, we argue that the 2001, 2003, and 2004 federal tax acts were timed such that they provide a set of tax changes suitable for identifying permanent effects of taxes on giving. The estimates based on the analysis of families who switch itemization status suggest that secular giving is price elastic, implying that treasury efficiency holds. In contrast, estimates which impose the restrictions facing other datasets suggest a statistically insignificant price elasticity.