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Interesting! It's not that obvious to me that this is bad. Eg, if this gets people donating stock rather than donating nothing at all, this feels like a cash transfer from the government to charities?
Of course, WHICH charities receive the stock matters a lot here
inflates donation figures.
From the article linked:
And what they find is that "large shareholders’ gifts are suspiciously well timed. Stock prices rise abnormally about 6% during the one-year period before the gift date and they fall abnormally by about 4% during the one year after the gift date, meaning that large shareholders tend to find the perfect day on which to give."
A 4% inflation really doesn't seem that bad? Especially since, as Larks says, charities can sell stock themselves much sooner than a year.
Interesting theory!
Presumably this effect would be significantly reduced if charities sold the stock as soon as they received it, as they would also sell at the 'inflated' price?
I think sometimes they can write into the donation various stipulations around how fast they sell it. If you were looking to avoid scrutiny, you might take advantage of that.