Legislation

Nonprofit social service agencies are releasing video messages intended to remind Connecticut legislators about the need to protect services for vulnerable residents as lawmakers consider the state budget.

The Connecticut Community Providers Association is releasing the videos over the next several weeks.

The first video, which is being sent to lawmakers and policymakers, highlights services the nonprofit agencies provide to more than 500,000 residents, including those with mental illness, substance abuse issues, developmental and physical disabilities.

March 30, 2011, the Senate Finance Committee will hold a hearing titled "How Do Complexity, Uncertainty and Other Factors Impact Responses to Tax Incentives" to determine whether tax incentives actually work, or whether they reward behavior that would have occurred anyway.  AFP is submitting comments to the committee urging it to support tax incentives that encourage charitable giving, oppose the Administration's proposed cap on itemized deductions (including charitable deductions) and extend the IRA Charitable Rollover provision, which will expire at the end of 2011.

Many charities across Canada are scrambling to figure out the impact of a surprising number of rule changes spelled out in this week’s federal budget, which caught the sector off guard. Even if the budget dies because of an election call, many of the measures affecting charities will go ahead because they require only regulatory changes, not legislation.

The changes include new compliance rules, restrictions on some types of donations, and significant reforms in the way national sports organizations operate.

Oregon Attorney General John Kroger went to the Legislature to press for a law that would enable the state to punish charities with paltry giving. Senate Bill 40 would strip the tax-deductible status from donations to charities that spend less than 30 percent of their annual budget on services. The charities would have to tell potential donors that their giving would not be tax-deductible — or face fines.

The chancellor announced £540m worth of tax breaks for charitiesin his budget, including inheritance tax reforms to encourage everyone to leave a charitable legacy when they die.

The changes are designed to boost the government's faltering "big society" scheme and offer alternative funding after charities have been hit by big cuts in local government grants. Charity bosses and some leaders from the arts world welcomed the new drive for philanthropy, but others gave warning that it would not make up for cuts being made elsewhere.

Ten senators have introduced a new bill to permanently extend a provision that allows people ages 70 1/2 or older to transfer up to $100,000 tax-free from their individual retirement accounts to charity.

The measure now expires at year’s end, but S557 would make it permanent. It also includes other measures charity leaders have long advocated: It lowers the minimum age of such donors to 59 1/2, removes the $100,000 cap on annual donations, and allows IRA gifts to be made to donor-advised funds and supporting organizations, which is currently not allowed.

Hospitals could lose more than $1-billion in donations if Congress limits charitable deductions, hospital fund raisers estimated in a new survey by the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy.

A poll conducted last month of 317 fund raisers who belong to the association asked about a proposal to reduce the deduction for charitable contributions to a 12-percent tax credit for donations. The credit would be available only for amounts beyond 2 percent of a taxpayer’s adjusted gross income.

With Mayor Mitch Landrieu's Tax Fairness Commission continuing to examine New Orleans' property and sales tax systems, a governmental research organization issued a report Tuesday urging major changes in the system of routinely awarding property tax exemptions to private schools and universities, churches, charities and other nonprofit organizations.

Bayonne Medical Center and Meadowlands Hospital in Secaucus are among the for-profit hospitals that would have to reveal financial information under proposed state legislation praised by labor leaders but opposed by a statewide hospital lobby.

New Jersey Hospital Association, which represents 72 acute-care hospitals in the state, opposes the bill because it would dissuade entities from coming to the state to take over failing hospitals, according to NJHA Senior Vice President Randy Minniear.

In a bill introduced in the Kansas state legislature, they’ve combined several familiar anti-choice gimmicks, including parental consent laws, fetal personhood measures, and more, to form what some are calling an anti abortion “mega-bill.” The kicker? In addition to these more familiar anti-choice ploys, the bill makes an unprecedented attack on organizations that provide abortion services: by threatening their non-profit, or 501c3, status.