Published: December 25, 2007 07:47 pm            

STEPHANIE SALTER: Come, let us praise 501(c)(3)s and parts of the U.S. tax code

TERRE HAUTE — This will come as a shock to readers who consider me a communist and end their notes with suggestions of other countries to which I might want to move:

I really like the way the United States government helps us fulfill the wishes of Jesus and most other holy and enlightened beings by making it easy to give to others. Thanks to IRS rules about charitable giving, those of us who itemize on our tax returns have no excuse for not sharing a little — or a lot.

In the U.S. tax code, nearly 30 kinds of non-profits qualify for tax deductible status. For example, there are two categories for veterans’ organizations: 501(c)(19) for most of them, and 501(c)(23) for those established before 1880.

The most common category is the 501(c)(3), which includes nonprofit organizations dedicated to activities religious, charitable, scientific, educational and literary, or for promoting amateur athletics, protecting kids or animals, or testing for public safety.

(A fairly easy-to-understand explanation of the 501(c) tax code provision can be found at wikipedia.org, which is, itself, a non-profit that welcomes tax-deductible donations.)

Thousands of 501(c)(3)s offer Americans with every inclination, affinity, loyalty or obsession to put their money where their heart or head is, then get rewarded at tax time up to 50 percent of their adjusted gross income.

Take the Heifer Project as merely one exhibit.

As regular readers may have gleaned by now from previous essays, I have a major problem with mindless consumerism at Christmas. Every year our national mania puts me into a hostile funk. This year, I struck back.

Accompanying each $10 stocking stuffer for my loved ones was a colorful computer printout card informing everybody that they helped buy some extremely poor strangers the equivalent of a goat, a flock of chickens and a bunch of honey bees. The facilitator was the Heifer Project (heifer.org), which was founded in Arkansas in 1944.

I swear to heaven, I would have done this even if I couldn’t deduct the cost of the animals from my income taxes. But, God bless America, I can. So, what’s not to embrace?

And when the feds and a state government team up to reward donors, it’s almost an embarrassment of thank-you riches.

Such is the case with Indiana and the Maternal Health Clinic of Union Hospital.

As the clinic’s staff explained Sunday in a letter to the Tribune-Star editor, donors to this wonderful Terre Haute service for low-income and no-income parents can receive as much as 75 percent of their contribution back in tax credits from the federal and state governments.

The magic comes through the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority and its Neighborhood Assistance Program awards. The Maternal Health Clinic has earned such an award again this year, which means it has tax credits to “sell” in return for donations.

Any contribution over $100 carries a 50-percent credit against a donor’s state tax income tax total. Amazingly, the feds allow double dipping, so the same contribution gets extra tax bang for the buck.

Despite its name, the Maternal Health Clinic provides a broad range of education and care for people of all ages and gender. As the staff’s letter mentioned, one of the services offers help for anyone trying to overcome an addiction — including that most common and unhealthy of joneses, smoking.

Interested donors should call Mary Huffman, the manager of the clinic, at (812) 238-7301. You have until Dec. 31 to mail or drop off a check and wait for it to come back in lovely ways, both karmic and monetary.

Same with every other 501(c)(3) in the whole United States. Just because Christmas is over, we don’t get an excuse to stop giving. Far from it. If we itemize deductions on our income taxes, this final week of 2007 is the time to kick into high gear.

Many worthy charities and your Uncle Sam will thank you.

Stephanie Salter can be reached at (812) 231-4229 or stephanie.salter@tribstar.com.

        

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