Regulation
Current U.S. tax law allows the donor of appreciated securities or other assets to get a tax deduction for the market value of the donation and avoid capital gains taxes. This double tax advantage can make donating appreciated assets to a charitable organization more attractive than selling the assets and donating cash. By donating appreciated assets to a donor advised fund and then advising the fund to make donations to several charities, one can reap these tax advantages without the hassle and paperwork of transferring non-cash assets to several organizations. This combination of convenience and full tax advantage is one reason that donor advised funds are used.
While private foundations in the United States are heavily regulated by the Internal Revenue Service, including rules on oversight and minimum annual payouts, donor advised funds housed in public charities are not subject to the same tax restrictions. On August 17, 2006, President Bush signed the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (H.R. 4) into law, which includes a number of changes to the regulatory framework for donor-advised funds, and follows both House and Senate passage of H.R. 4. The sections dealing with donor-advised funds include:
- Legal definition of a donor-advised fund.
- A list of prohibited payments to donors and advisers to donor-advised fund.
- New rules about what grants can be made from donor-advised funds.
- The documentation required for all contributions to donor-advised funds.
Read more about this topic: Donor Advised Fund
Famous quotes containing the word regulation:
“Nothing can be more real, or concern us more, than our own sentiments of pleasure and uneasiness; and if these be favourable to virtue and unfavourable to vice, no more can be requisite to the regulation of our conduct and behavior.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“Nothing changes my twenty-six years in the military. I continue to love it and everything it stands for and everything I was able to accomplish in it. To put up a wall against the military because of one regulation would be doing the same thing that the regulation does in terms of negating people.”
—Margarethe Cammermeyer (b. 1942)
“Lots of white people think black people are stupid. They are stupid themselves for thinking so, but regulation will not make them smarter.”
—Stephen Carter (b. 1954)