Hi all,
I wanted to invite discussion on new legislation in the U.S., aimed at making DAFs distribute money annually:
The bill would make numerous reforms to DAFs by, among other things, creating new categories of accounts.
One type of account would give donors an immediate income tax deduction for money they agree to give to a charity within 15 years.
The second type would let them delay the distribution of their money for 50 years. These donors would get no income tax deduction until then. But they would still get to enjoy capital gains and estate tax savings for donating stocks or gifts into a DAF...
The Senate bill would also prohibit donors from claiming tax benefits for complex donations — like real estate — that exceed the value of the gift. It would also incentivize private foundations to increase their payouts to 7% and bar them from meeting their payout requirements by paying salaries or other expenses for relatives or by donating to DAFs.
(More details in the article). I remember seeing something about this earlier, and thinking it would be terrible to force 5% annual distributions on DAFs like a foundation. But now that we have these details, the second type of account listed seems pretty OK for EA purposes. But, it's obviously not as good as being able to take deductions immediately.
What do you think? Is this ruining longtermist giving, or helping charities get more money before DAFs take their cut? If this is something that people think is bad for EA purposes, should we be writing letters and op-eds about it? Is philanthropy policy a good career path/area of study for EAs?
FYI, there is an existing discussion of this question on the forum here.
There's also some Facebook discussion of the Forum post.
Ah, thanks! I had tried searching "DAF" in the forum, but I guess I did a poor job. Cheers.