>Yet, we insist in the feel good model of donations for reuse, or only for the tax write-off.

You do realize that even with the write-off, making a donation is still strictly net negative from a finance point of view[1]? If you donate $1000, your bank account contains $1000 fewer dollars, but you don't get back $1000 in tax credits. It reduces your income by $1000, which roughly translates to a benefit of $1000 * [your marginal tax rate].

[1] assuming you're not pulling any tax shenanigans

> If you donate $1000, your bank account contains $1000 fewer dollars, but you don't get back $1000 in tax credits

That's not how it works in France, you give 1000€ and you get an actual tax credit of 750€ (this is restricted to 20% of income tax).

So if you normally pay, say, 5000€ of tax, now in total you pay 4250€ of tax + 1000€ of donation ; but you can display on your website "donated 1000€ to foundation X !" (which has a value in itself as it improves opinion of your company, you can make a small press release, etc..) And that cost you only 250€ in practice.

You're both lucky.

It's stupid in Canada and seemingly nothing to do with giving or encouraging it. If you're in the highest tax brackets, that last $1000 you earn as income nets you ~$550. If you donate that $550 to a charity, you only get a credit that works out to half your tax rate on $550.

It's less credit for the first $200 in donations, and more credit for amounts above that for unknown reasons. Because 2 people donating $200 shouldn't count as much as 1 person donating $400? Or $200 every year gets you less credit than $400 every other year. Shouldn't we encourage regular giving in small amounts?

Meanwhile, if you have a stock that goes from $100 to $1000 and donate it, not only do you get totally exempt from capital gain tax, you get ~30% back on that full $1000.

If your income is low enough to not pay income tax, you get nothing back on your donations until you do.

Why aren't income-earning people allowed to get a full deduction on the tax paid on their donations?

Only if you ask for it though. You can always just give money and leave the taxes as they are.

In theory the tax write-off makes sense: instead of the government serving as a middleman for charities and making political decisions on who-gets-what, it allows the citizens to more freely support the charities they like directly.

Sadly, in its present form, most people in the US seem to be too exhausted and cash-poor to donate larger amounts more frequently (even before COVID), slowly increasing the reliance on larger endowments based on the whims of fewer and fewer people/organizations. People with lower incomes also probably don’t pay enough in taxes to really reap the benefits of the write-off since it’s only a deduction.

My impression is that poor people donate a lot through their churches, which do tons of important social work, but we HN people have zero contact with those layers of society.

> instead of the government serving as a middleman for charities and making political decisions on who-gets-what, it allows the citizens to more freely support the charities they like directly.

In this case it would make sense to make the donations mandatory and income-dependent. Let people choose which cause to support but don't let them choose not to support anything. I happily pay income tax for the state to support those around me who need it, which ideally should cover the need for donations fully, but see your point.

Still, nobody should be dependent on only the good-will of other luckier people to this extent, when the system and people's background influence economical success this much.

Charitable donations increased 5% from 2018 to 2019 (before COVID). We don't have the data on 2020 yet.

https://www.nptrust.org/philanthropic-resources/charitable-g...

It's only a deduction you can take if you itemize your deductions. This rules out nearly all renters.