Tax News Covers Charitable Deductions

Posted by accountingweb on Feb 3 2000 137 printer friendly

The latest tax news from MSNBC covers a variety of topics including news that taxpayers who do not itemize may be able to deduct charitable contributions.

Approximately 70 percent of taxpayers do not itemize and do not write off any deductions currently. A legislative plan backed by President Clinton would allow deductions, and since this is an election year, it may be interesting to note that George W. Bush also favors the same idea.

In other charity-related news, the maximum deduction a taxpayer can take on donations to private foundations is 20 percent of the donation; other legislation similar to the one above favors increasing this to 30 percent.

New York City has begun its own cyberspace program in tracking down tax liabilities by posting the names of businesses in the metropolitan area who are negligent on city taxes. The Web site has additional information.

Voice of the Editor

Even though any accounting auditor would tell you it seems like there are an awful lot of tax accountants out there, surely one-third of the country isn't made up of tax preparers, so it's rather startling news to learn that one-third of Americans like to do their taxes. Who knew?

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