New York State is typical of spendthrift states teetering on the hole they've dug of big deficits, looking for more taxes to fill the hole into which tax dollars are thrown.
The latest:
Many nonprofit organizations in New York are deeply concerned they will lose significant contributions from wealthy donors if a pending state budget proposal becomes law. The proposal would reduce the charitable-contribution deductions allowed for individual donors who are “high earners.”
Gov. David Paterson and the state legislature are in a bitter battle as they try to finalize a budget during the bad economic times, but they apparently have agreed on a proposal that would allow the approximately 3,500 New York taxpayers who earn more than $10-million annually to deduct on their state tax returns only 25 percent of their charitable contributions rather than the current 50 percent.
Yes, there’s this, for many donors, self-promotion ranks above helping the needy:
In New York, Arts Trump Social Causes for Philanthropic Recognition: Large donations to institutions such as the Lincoln Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the New York City Ballet are well covered in the press, and serving on major arts boards can raise members’ social standing and improve business ties, Crain’s writes. By contrast, when the New York investment managers Fiona and Stanley Druckenmiller, who focus on medical and economic charities, ranked No. 1 on the latest Chronicle of Philanthropy list of top givers, “many in the city's nonprofit world wondered, 'Who?’”
Experts say the city's elite put great value on major arts institutions, and gifts to such organizations garner public attention because they are often landmarks frequented by residents and tourists, unlike new hospital wings or university buildings.
Yet, as the official tabulation of income taxes paid in New York shows, (page 5) of $29.6 billion in personal income taxes collected in 2007, 49% came from those with income above $500,000, about 1% of taxpayers, and their deductions were 8% of the tax deductions claimed by all taxpayers.
The well-to-do are more than contributing their part to the NYS government largesse with taxpayer funds.
But, according to the tabulation of the top US contributors to charities for 2008,due to the economic downturn their charitable contributions have fallen:
[T]he number of wealthy people making big gifts has shrunk. A donor needed to part with just $16.2-million in 2009 to qualify for The Chronicle’s list. In 2008 that number was $30.5-million; and in 2007 it was $39-million.
So, tell me why and how New York State driving its golden geese out of state will benefit the needy or the art-starved in New York State.
So, tell me how higher taxes will incent the most productive to invest more or earn more just in order to have more taken away.
So, tell me why higher taxes will not lead to lowered prosperity and thus to lower tax collections and charitable contributions, most of which goes to help the real and supposedly needy.
So, tell me whether adding more government-sector workers, at higher pay and benefits than among private-sector workers, the private-sector workforce shrinking, is really the priority of liberal nest-feathering politicians.
