From my friend and colleague Don Taylor in a post over at the Incidental Economist:
“The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) outlines 11 options for reforming the tax treatment of charitable contributions, nine of which are designed to lessen the revenue lost from how the current tax code treats such contributions. (…)
The bottom line of this detailed analysis is that for the nine options simulated that would lessen the current tax preference provided to charitable giving, CBO finds that the deficit reduction achieved is larger than the subsequent reduction in charitable giving. None of these reforms would eradicate our budget deficit by any stretch, but they would be a move toward balance, and charitable contributions would not decline by that much.”
Every little bit helps, as they say.