The Social Workshop

De-sensationalising the charitable giving debate

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:24:52 -0400

De-sensationalising the charitable giving debate:

This BBC article is just one of many discussions in the media which, in one journalistic breath, refer to the debate about whether there should be a limit placed upon untaxed charitable donations and tax avoidance.

Let’s be clear on what the issues really are.

First of all, charitable giving does not amount to what is generally referred to as “tax avoidance” or “tax dodging”. This is because the taxpayer is not better off as a result of giving money to charity.

Imagine I earn £100,000. I have no (other) tax deductible expenses. If I don’t the money to charity I am left with nothing. If I don’t donate the money to charity, I get to keep about £70,000 because almost £30,000 will come out in tax. I am clearly not personally financially better off donating the money to charity.

Compare this, say, to putting money into an ISA, a pension fund, or investing it in an off-shore company in a manner which means I do not pay tax on the money (just as I do not pay tax on the money if I pay it to charity). This time I do benefit from the fact that tax is not levied on my £100,000 - I benefit financially from my own pension fund, I get to keep 100% of the money I invest in an ISA (up to the tax-free limits, of course), and the point of my off-shore investment is that I am not taxed on it (or at least I am taxed at a much lower rate).

Some such activities are lawful, and indeed encouraged by government policy. Other similar activities are not lawful, or at least are borderline. It is these which we might call examples of “tax avoidance” or “tax dodging”.

This is of course a remarkably simplistic account. But the point is this: it simply does not help to have a genuinely productive debate when the issue of whether or not tax-free charitable giving should be capped is merged with issues such as “tax avoidance” and statistics in relation to what percentage of high earners’ income on average is paid to the government by way of taxation in a sensationalist fashion.

There are of course important debates to be had. Most obviously, should government policy discourage, or limit, charitable spending in order to ensure that it has control over how money spent for the public good is allocated?

This is a genuinely interesting issue.

Some say, for example, that charitable spending is a more efficient way of contributing to the public good. Others, often deploying the slippery-slope argument, say that it should not be for individuals to determine how publicly directed money is spent: only government can asses a society’s needs in a holistic fashion in order to determine how public money should be spent. By giving to charity, the wealthy deprive government of access to funds to pursue government policy and instead decide for themselves the worthy beneficiaries of their funds.

Other supporters of a limit on tax-free charitable spending cast doubt over the worthiness or perhaps even genuineness of recipients of charitable funds. If there is substance behind this concern, however, surely the answer is to improve the regulation of charities. It is important to recognise in this debate though, that charities are already highly regulated and charitable status must be established by each charitable body to the satisfaction of the Charities Commission.

It is also interesting to observe, as those who have spent any significant time in the US would find it difficult to miss, that charity and philanthropic activities are a pivotally well-entrenched aspect of society in the States. Entire schools, colleges and universities thrive on the benefits of philanthropy, as do any number of world-renowned arts organisations. Other charitable endeavours tackle problems of homelessness and poverty in a systematic and widespread fashion.

I express no view on the relative merits of charitable endeavours on the one hand and government spending on the other. They are clearly not mutually exclusive in that charitable spending at least to some extent curtails the need for government spending and vice versa.

The useful debate to be had in the context of these issues is not, however, about general concerns as to whether or not “tax avoidance” or “tax dodging” is a good thing or even how much tax rich people pay.

Tyler and Trayvon

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 16:04:52 -0400

Tyler and Trayvon:

The tragic deaths of two teenagers raise questions about hate-crime laws and our urge to fix the human race.

Bill Keller’s article in the NY Times is a thought- provoking critique of “hate crimes” although his commentary raises significantly more issues than it grapples with.

Keller does not set out the legislative provisions with which his discussion is concerned. One assumes however that the provisions seek to impose greater penalties (perhaps following conviction for different offences) on those found to have performed certain familiar criminal acts not only with the usual mental element or intent required but with the additional element of a racist or homophobic motive than those found to have committed the same act without such a motive.

Keller, it appears, is concerned variously with the potential for hate crimes to criminalise “a defect of character”, to “punish you for thinking those vile things, if you think them in the course of a crime”, to punish us for “who we are and not what we do”, to be abused by juries and to become “pitchforks for showboating politicians”.

These concerns miss the mark. Surely most crimes purport to criminalise defects in character. Put (admittedly absurdly) simply, the justification for criminal punishment is most often put in a manner which assumes some kind of “free will” (whatever that means) and that the exercise of that free will to perform a criminal act constitutes a defect of character which should be punished. Unless of course a bad decision does not count as a defect of character but I think most people would consider that someone who murders or rapes without a racial or homophobic motive still suffers from a defect of character. Indeed we might think that is so regardless of what we think about the vexed “free will” question.

The distinction between who we are and what we do assumes a kind of dualism which has long been discredited by neuroscientists and philosophers alike, but in any event it is hard to understand how punishment for murder is any less about who we are than punishment for murder motivated by racism. The point is (and I expand on this further below) hate crimes are not about a mere coincidence between thought and act - they are about acting for certain reasons which reasons it is thought constitute (in general terms) aggravating circumstances. If “free will” exists, then hate crimes proceed on the basis that we should not act for certain reasons or on the basis of particular motives: whether or not we so act is just as much a matter of choice (if such choice exists) as committing the same act for another reason. The question is, to oversimplify matters: are some reasons worse than others?

The concerns about the use made of the crimes by juries and politicians are consequential concerns. Whether or not the points made are founded in reality is an empirical matter. In any event such concerns must be secondary to the intrinsic justification for hate crimes legislation.

Most interesting is Keller’s fear that hate crimes will lead to punishment for certain thoughts if such thoughts happen to occur at the same time as a criminal act is committed. This obviously ignores the assumed or perhaps necessary (depending on how the legislation is framed) between the thought and the act.

In fact the kind of link between thought and act which hate crimes adopt is very familiar to both moral and legal normative systems. Hate crimes seek to increase the punishment normally imposed following a certain criminal act when the REASON for committing the act is a reason specified in the legislation, eg racial or religious hatred.

The prohibition of acting for certain reasons is the basis of anti-discrimination rules. It is not unlawful to refuse a black person a job but it is unlawful to do so if the reason for refusal is that they are black. Not enough analysis of anti-discrimination norms focused on this aspect of their inherent structure - this is one reason why we might initially be surprised by their structure.

There are of course many debates to be had about the prohibited grounds for discrimination and the justification for their prohibition or indeed for their use as a basis for punishment. But that is a debate for another day. For now it is important that at least the issues for debate are clearly identified.

We need to rethink how we define merit for supreme court appointments

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 14:25:11 -0400

We need to rethink how we define merit for supreme court appointments:

What counts as “merit” in the context of making judicial (or other) appointments?

Is there any reason why the criteria for selection should be limited to (say) experience, academic achievement, education and so on? These kinds of considerations have been traditionally thought of as identifying the best person for the job. But sex, race, socio-demographic background and so on might also be useful in identifying the best person for a position such as a judicial appointment if, for example, it is important that judges represent various groups in the community. Similar arguments might be made in relation to many kinds of appointments.

Indeed “merit” is perhaps not a helpful term: it tends to suggest ideas of dessert, fairness or even some kind of “neutrality” or “objectivity”. But why is the most intelligent candidate more meritorious than a very intelligent candidate who is also a member of an underrepresented group ( if wide representation is indeed desirable)?

This is a debate which has the potential quickly to raise all sorts of questions about dessert, free will and so on. Indeed it might be thought the application of this kind of criterion amounts to “positive discrimination”. That concept in itself raises an enormous number of well-known issues ripe for debate, but it is beside the point I make here. When one looks at it from the point of view of the person or body making the appointment, or those with an interest in who is appointed, it seems less surprising that matters such as sex, race, social background and so on might be legitimate criteria to be applied in making judicial and other appointments.