View Research by Author - Katherine Toran

Publications

The ongoing political standoff over the budget continues to have implications for all sectors of the economy, including the nonprofit sector. Most notably, proposed changes to personal itemized deductions have implications for the charitable deduction and giving to the sector as a whole.

The conference “The Charitable Deduction: A View from the Other Side of the Cliff,” hosted by the Urban Institute on February 28, 2013 examined how the recent debate over tax changes has affected nonprofits and charitable giving. Throughout the conference, a reoccurring theme was the gap between economic analysis and political feasibility.

This fact sheet examines the effects of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (ATRA) on charitable giving. The major individual income tax provisions are estimated to increase giving by $3.3 billion or 1.5 percent, relative to 2012 law, mainly because of the increase in the top marginal tax rate. Numerous other smaller provisions will also affect charitable giving.

Federal, state, and local government investments in children vary by age. This report examines 2011 federal spending and 2008 total government spending on children age 0-2, 3-5, 6-11, and 12-18. We find that state and local governments provide three-quarters of total public investments in children age 6 and older, while the federal government provides three-quarters of investments in children age 0-2 and about half of investments in age 3-5. Total public spending is highest for school-age children, but federal spending is highest for the youngest children. These findings suggest that investments at all levels of government matter for children.

Driven by increasing pressure on local budgets, some municipalities have sought a reexamination of the property-tax exemption for nonprofit organizations provided by state law. The property tax is a major source of revenue for many municipalities, and large nonprofits such as universities and hospitals may own significant portions of land within a given city. Some cities have begun asking nonprofits for voluntary PILOTs, or Payments in Lieu of Taxes—an attempt to collect a portion of the property tax revenue which would be owed if nonprofits were not tax-exempt. However, concerns from nonprofit organizations have arisen regarding PILOTs.

Issue Brief Number 1 for the Tax Policy and Charities Project discusses the IRA charitable rollover, a tax provision that allows certain taxpayers to distribute money directly from an individual retirement account (IRA) to a qualifying charity without paying taxes.

Kids' Share 2012: Report on Federal Expenditures on Children through 2011, a sixth annual report, looks comprehensively at trends in federal spending and tax expenditures on children. This appendix details our data sources, the programs we include, and the methodology used to estimate the percentage of all expenditures that went to children.

Kids' Share 2012: Report on Federal Expenditures on Children through 2011, a sixth annual report, looks comprehensively at trends over the past 50 years in federal spending and tax expenditures on children. Key findings suggest that the size and composition of expenditures on children have changed considerably, but children have not been a budget priority. In 2011, federal outlays on children fell for the first time since the early 1980s, dropping from $378 billion in 2010 to $376 billion. Over the next decade, outlays on children are projected to decline from 10 to 8 percent of the federal budget.

Kids' Share Website

Federal spending on children's health increased greatly over the past 50 years, although it remained a modest 10 percent of total health spending in 2010. The largest program in the children's health budget, Medicaid, accounted for $74 billion and 85 percent of all federal spending on children's health in 2010. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) included provisions that will increase health insurance coverage for both children and their parents. However, the magnitude of the estimated impact of the ACA on children's coverage depends heavily on the continuation of current Medicaid and CHIP coverage for children.

This report provides a first-time analysis of how the allocation of public resources for children varies by family income. Examining federal expenditures for nearly 100 federal programs in 2009, the report finds that 70 percent of all federal spending on children served the 42 percent of children who are low-income -- living in families with incomes less than twice the federal poverty level. While low-income children received 84 percent of outlays on children, higher-income children received 82 percent of tax reductions benefiting children.

This brief attempts to access the trends in charitable giving and how the current economic turmoil has affected the nonprofit sector - the main topic of an August 2011 roundtable hosted by the Tax Policy and Charities project at the Urban Institute. Twenty-five experts on tax policy and the nonprofit sector convened to discuss past trends in giving, the charitable sector's current situation, and the possible effects of proposals to modify the charitable deduction.

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