Perspectives

Last week Republican leaders unveiled a “unified framework” for tax reform that will serve as the basis for major tax reform legislation currently being drafted by the two tax-writing committees. This legislation, expected to move through Congress later this year, would significantly reduce charitable giving in America. Although the framework maintains the current-law charitable deduction, the vast majority of taxpayers – as many as 95 percent! – would no longer itemize deductions on their taxes, meaning the charitable deduction would become virtually meaningless to them.