Most Charitable Bequests Are Not Estate-Tax Driven

Giving by the wealthy is largely immune to tax changes, according to this Wall Street Jorunel item:

Many wealthy people would still give a lot to charity even if Congress wiped out popular breaks for donating, a study suggests. While these high-net-worth Americans already contribute two-thirds of household charitable giving, donating $126 billion last year alone, they would give more if nonprofits could rein in administrative costs and better demonstrate the impact of donations.

The researchers at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, underwritten by Bank of America Corp., distributed 30,000 surveys between June and September in neighborhoods where the average household had liquid assets of $3 million or more. Responses from 945 were used in the analysis. The survey, designed as a nationally representative random sample, defined high-net-worth households as those with incomes of greater than $200,000 or assets over $1 million.

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52% of responding households said their giving would stay the same if they received no income-tax deductions for it. And 38% said such giving would somewhat decrease, but only 7% said it would dramatically decrease.

In addition, 56% said the amount they would leave to charity in an estate plan would remain the same if the estate tax were repealed.