Are you unhappy with the tax cut deal that Obama struck with Republicans? Two Yale economists have made it easy to put your feelings into action.
In the recent tax deal, modest support for middle class Americans was combined with massive tax cuts for the rich. This is unfair: the rich don’t need the help. It is also inefficient: the rich will save rather than spend their tax cuts, so that cutting their taxes yields little stimulus per dollar of deficit. Can citizens adjust their conduct to counteract such wrong policy?
We believe that they can and propose a mechanism for doing so. The most fortunate citizens can convert their inefficient and unfair tax cuts into good fiscal policy. Rather than saving their new-found after-tax income, citizens who can afford it should donate their tax cuts to charities that promote the kinds of stimulative programs that better government policy would provide.We’ve built a website to help achieve this — www.giveitbackforjobs.org enables citizens to calculate their approximate tax cuts and, acting in concert, give them back to appropriate charities. Acting together matters here. First, each participant encourages others to join as well. Second, by tying giving to tax policy, donors emphasize that they are not giving out of private grace, but from a shared sense of the obligations of citizenship. They practice political philanthropy.
Read more. If you hurry you can count your contribution as a deduction on your 2010 taxes — unless you want the government to keep the cash.
At Give it Back you can designate which charity will receive your donation. We suggest Episcopal Relief & Development – Haiti.