Congressman Blumenauer Addresses Foundations on Possible Tax Law Changes

An interesting article in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Congressman Urges Foundation Officials to Push for Tax Changes, discusses several tax issues of relevance to charities, including the foundations represented by employees who congregated in D.C. this week for “the Council on Foundations and the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers’ annual ‘Foundations on the Hill’ day.”  Addressing the group was Rep. Earl Blumenauer, Democrat of Oregon and a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, who reportedly reminded the foundations of the “enormous pressure on legislators to reduce the federal deficit” and said that “some people are eyeing ways to change the charitable deduction.”   According to the story, Blumenauer observed the decrease in large charitable gifts in 2010, a year in which no estate tax was imposed, and suggested that Congress might consider some simplification of private foundation excise tax rules and permanent codification of the IRA charitable rollover rules.

The “simplification” of the private foundation excise tax rules is, I assume, a reference to a proposal to end the dual rate structure of the excise tax on private foundations’ net investment income.   The issue is discussed on the website of the Council on Foundations.

JRB