At least in AZ, we have several tax credits that allow you to donate to organizations in certain categories. Unfortunately it’s a fixed dollar amount and not a percentage of liability.
I agree, it would be nice to control where more tax money was directed.
Elections are how you control where your tax money goes.
Micro-earmarks by voters would create enormous imbalances. Police get so much money for equipment that they can’t spend it all, while public defenders go unfunded.
Re:Donate Unrestricted
by capableweb on Sunday March 07, 2021 @11:42AM
(#26377322)
> Micro-earmarks by voters would create enormous imbalances
How sure are you about this? Would love to see some research into how things would work if taxes were more "crowd-fund" oriented.
> Police get so much money for equipment that they can’t spend it all, while public defenders go unfunded.
Maybe in some places today it would go like that, and in others to opposite. Considering the huge wave of "defund the police and fund social work" in the US today, I think the balance would be the other way.
>Police get so much money for equipment that they can’t spend it all, while public defenders go unfunded.
Isn't that true today?
The donations are categorized: organizations the at help the working poor, schools (woefully underfunded in AZ), foster and adoption organizations.
Re:Donate Unrestricted
by dualscyther on Sunday March 07, 2021 @08:57PM
(#26381627)
Right, but that's why the article is telling donors not to restrict their donations, as opposed to telling charities to prohibit restricted donations.
Maybe so, but maybe it's a compromise as well. If not, no funding at all would have been given which maybe would be a net-loss long-term. Receiving money to do research might not always include research you want to do, but you'll gain more experience overall and do better once you get to the research you want to do.
I'm thinking from the perspective that if I got to choose where my taxes went to. If I could decide which areas 50% the money goes towards, I think I would have been more happy paying taxes and maybe would add more, in order to fund efforts I believe in personally.