In a time when the coronavirus pandemic has more bluntly exposed economic inequality in America, a new spotlight is being shone on the ways that charitable giving can exacerbate such divisions. In for Jim Braude, Sue O’Connell was joined by Ray Madoff, a professor at Boston College Law School who is pushing for a bipartisan policy change to address the issue.
“The thing that few Americans realize is how much each and every one of us is contributing when those millionaires and billionaires put money aside. The tax savings on their part, or the cost to the rest of us in foregone taxes, can be worth as much as 74 percent of the value of the donation,” Madoff said about the how people with wealth use charitable giving to avoid taxes. “Yet under the current rules, there’s no assurances that those funds will ever be put to charitable use.”
WATCH: Reforming charitable giving
