On behalf of Janathan L. Allen, APC posted in IRS on Wednesday, December 16, 2015
Collectively speaking, Americans are a charitable bunch. Millions of people across the country, and certainly in California, regularly donate time, services and money to nonprofit groups and other organizations that do good in their communities. Indeed, many — if not most — of those groups would cease to exist but for the cash infusions they regularly receive from donors.
So, if you’re one of those donors, you likely feel good about yourself when, in good faith, you think of others and make a personal sacrifice to enhance their well-being.
Do you think you might be a bit less inclined to contribute to the charities you regularly support if the Internal Revenue Service began requiring them to supply personal information about you and your giving?
That is the focused concern of a legislative bill introduced last week by U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), who believes that any such attempt to collect charitable giving-related information by the IRS would chill the incentive of taxpayers to make charitable donations.
And that could in turn, he says, “very significantly stress the good works done by our charitable sector.”
The IRS currently puts the onus on a donor to prove that a claimed contribution was made. Traditionally, a receiving charity has provided its donors with contribution-related information.
Recently, though, the IRS proposed a voluntary rule pursuant to which, in lieu of that practice, charities could directly provide the agency with a donor’s personal information, including his or her Social Security number, the amount of the donation and/or an accurate description of donated property and other data.
Roberts doesn’t like that, and it is likely that many other Americans don’t either. The senator thinks that the voluntary nature of such a “rule” could easily turn into a mandatory submission in the future and “dramatically reduce people’s willingness to make donations.”
The ultimate question that many people might reasonably ask regarding any such rule might be this: Is the IRS overreaching?
