How's this for an idea? NO MORE TAX EXEMPT STATUS FOR *ANY* POLITICAL CONTRIBUTIONS?

[TrollBuster9090]

Election funding is a mess. The amount of dark money, corporate funding of elections has now DWARFED individual contributions.

So, my question is this: How much would it hurt the average citizen, donating $20 to an election, vs. corporations and plutocrats who donate $20 000 000 to an election? My guess is that the average citizen wouldn't be bothered much by having their political donations taxed...but taxing corporate and plutocrat attempts to buy elections would actually RAISE A LOT OF MONEY.

Thanks to Citizens United, there's nothing we can do to stop billionaires from attempting to buy government by flooding election cycles with tidal waves of dark money. BUT AT LEAST WE CAN PUT IT TO SOME USE!

According to Opensecrets, $5.8 BILLION DOLLARS was spent in the last election. Taxing it at a standard rate of 30% would have pumped $1 800 000 000 back into our crumbling infrastructure, hospitals and schools.

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2012/08/2012-election-will-be-costliest-yet.html


What do you think? Is it time to END tax free status for political contributions altogether? I'd go for that, and it would be much easier to do than to try to selectively exclude dark money.

[Xipe Totec]

1. How about a tax break on the first $20 dollars of political donations?

[Thor_MN]

2. If a corporation is a person, it should be held to individual donation limits.

A corporation should not be able to contribute more than what any one person is able to contribute.

[TrollBuster9090]

7. VERY good point! I was waiting for somebody to take that argument to the SCOTUS. However,

I think corporations end up being VERY SPECIAL people. They get to do all the GOOD stuff that people can do (donate to elections), but they never get any of the crap that real people have to deal with. Like getting thrown in jail if they poison the water table of a nearby town.

[Live and Learn]

3. I don't think political contributions are tax exempt.

I certainly have never claimed any of my contributions as exempt.

I believe that is why these organizations are applying for exemptions as charitable organizations which they obviously are not.

Lobbying monies, however may be being deducted as business costs and that should be illegal. Still wouldn't really matter though, the corporations definitely get more than their moneys worth from the benefits they receive by lobbying.

[Ms. Toad]

6. You are correct -

as to political contributions. As to whether they are 501(c)(4) social welfare entities - that would depend on a case by case analysis. The reason for the "tea party" filter was an ill advised attempt to sort which needed to be reviewed because the activity was suspect. The reason it was ill advised is the same reason that restrictions on speech must be viewpoint neutral. Activities can be screened - viewpoints cannot.

I'd have to check on whether lobbying monies are deductible - it has been a while since I took a corporate/business entity tax class - but you are probably right. They are not deductible from personal taxes.

[TrollBuster9090]

9. Thanks for the info!

I wouldn't know about the tax exempt status of political donations. I've never donated beyond the level of shoving bills into tin cans in front of the supermarket.

[Ms. Toad]

4. Political donations ARE taxed.

So, my question is this: How much would it hurt the average citizen, donating $20 to an election, vs. corporations and plutocrats who donate $20 000 000 to an election? My guess is that the average citizen wouldn't be bothered much by having their political donations taxed...but taxing corporate and plutocrat attempts to buy elections would actually RAISE A LOT OF MONEY.

Donations to 501(c)(4) entities are taxed (I am on the board of Friends Committee on National Legislation - a Quaker lobby group which is a 501(c)(4). If I donate to that entity - rather than to the companion 501(c)(3) FCNL Ed. Fund - I am not permitted to deduct the donation). I also occasionally donate to candidates. I am not permitted to deduct those donations, either.

The question over 501(c)(4) entities (the tea party furor recently) is not whether donors get to deduct donations - or even, really, whether the tea party entities pay taxes on their net revenue (which is the sense in which these entities are tax exempt).

The big question is whether the entities have to reveal their donors. Sec 527 entities have to, and 501(c)(4) entities don't have to.

[Egalitarian Thug]

5. Better, no more tax exemptions, period. n/t

[TrollBuster9090]

8. I agree. No tax exemptions, and no business write offs.

They can lower the corporate tax rate if they want to, but remove the exemptions, write offs and deductions.

Removing all (or most) of the 'business expense' write offs would have two positive effects.

1. It would force businesses to re-evaluate everything they do, and ask whether all the various things they've previously written off are actually contributing to company PROFITS. If not, they'll have to ask themselves whether they want to keep on doing it. It will make them more efficient. They'll have to ask whether all those meetings and traveling expenses, and various purchases are really helping them make money, as opposed to being things the executive class just LIKES to do, and can justify continuing to do them on the grounds that the expenses can be written off. And,

2. No longer being able to write off jets and yachts and travel expense, and new cars, and new computers and new office furniture will help cure the executive class of their "I'm special and you're not" mind set. Part of the reason we've had so much corporate malfeasance over the last 30 years is because people who rise to the level of executives (or are BORN in the 'executive class' like Trump and Romney) have come to believe that they're special, and that rules are only for little people. Being able to enjoy executive perks at the taxpayer's expense contributes to that mind set.

[Egalitarian Thug]

11. If we were to do this it would have to be total, else the door is open to exception

and we would end up back here. They are not necessary in any case, the only purpose to tax exemptions is to grant favor or influence behavior, neither of which is the legitimate business of government.

[HiPointDem]

10. no more tax exemptions for *anything*. most small donors don't take the charitable deductions

anyway.