Passionate Steward - 10th Anniversary Edition

70 THE PASSIONATE STEWARD
that 73% of the charitable givers surveyed did not
intend to use their gifts as tax deductions,
suggesting other factors were influencing their
decision to give. 30
To be certain, the United States Revenue Act of 1917, the
Estate Tax Law of 1921, and the Gift Tax Act of 1932 have all
played an integral part in the promotion of charitable giving in the
United States. The tax code in the United States is now so
voluminous that accountants and lawyers base entire careers on a
single section of it. However, while tax policy can promote and
reward charitable giving, it can never provide the basic motivation
for giving.
The very definition of gift entails the free transfer of
something of value, and for that reason the heart of every charitable
gift must be the philanthropic intent of the giver. The assertion that
tax policy is a reason for giving negates the ancient Greek notion of
philanthropy as the “love of humanity” and reduces giving to a
transaction, whereby the giver receives something in exchange for
his or her gift. To be sure, tax credits and deductions are society’s
way of encouraging desirable behaviour. But even tax policy
experts are adamant that tax incentives for charitable giving are not
a motivation for giving—they are a reward. For this reason, in
almost every jurisdiction in the United States and Canada, donors
are prohibited by law from receiving something of real value in
exchange for their charitable gifts, aside from those tax deductions
and credits which may be available by statute or the ruling of tax
authorities. The receipt of something of value mitigates the value of
the gift and therefore negates its charitable status. This idea is
recognized in almost every jurisdiction, and is uniformly adopted as
30 Susan Tressler, “Charitable Giving in the United States: A Model and
Opportunity for Funding Conservation of Biodiversity” (IUCN: paper presented at the
Financing Biodiversity Conference, Harare, Zimbabwe, September 1995), p.2.