NAEIR and Independent Sector work together in support of HR 2592: the Charitable Contribution Parity & Enhancement Act

Left to Right: Lois Fu, Vice President, Public Policy for IS,
Geoffrey Plague, Director, Government Relations, Gary C.
Smith, President/CEO and Cruz Ramos, Vice President of
Public Affairs

During one of the general sessions at the recent Independent Sector 2011 annual conference in Chicago, I had the good fortune of sitting next to Lois Fu, Vice President, Public Policy for Independent Sector. As I’ve mentioned in a previous posting, IS is a highly respected national nonprofit organization that actively works on behalf of nonprofit organizations throughout the country on a wide range of issues.

Although I hadn’t met Lois previously, as soon as I introduced myself she informed me that she was aware of HR 2592, the Charitable Contribution Parity & Enhancement Act and that she had already met with Gary C. Smith, President/CEO and Jim Jones, Director of Public Affairs for NAEIR earlier in 2011 just prior to our joining IS. She added that IS has decided to include HR 2592 in a listing along with a number of other bills they are supporting.

HR 2592 seeks to extend the up to twice-cost federal tax deduction to S Corporations and other smaller companies when they donate excess, slow-moving inventory to charitable organizations. At this time, only C Corporations are generally eligible for this enhanced deduction.

The passage of HR 2592 would provide a significantly larger number of companies with a tax incentive that would in turn make greater amounts of inventory available to charities throughout the U.S.

I was in attendance along with Gary and Jim at a more recent meeting with Lois Fu and Geoffrey Plague, Director, Government Relations. Lois and Geoffrey both discussed some of the challenges that IS is facing as Congress contends with a number of other legislative realities that figure prominently on its agenda through the end of the year.

It becomes all the more critical then, for us to let our representatives in Congress know that they need to support HR 2592, as this bill represents a much needed lifeline to struggling S Corporations and other small businesses as well as deserving charitable organizations throughout the country.

Congressman Aaron Schock is sponsoring this bill and congressmen Danny Davis and Bobby Schilling are its co-sponsors.

Please call or email your representatives now and let them know that you support the bill. We would also appreciate your copying us on any emails you send to your representatives. Our respective email addresses are car@naeir.org and gcs@naeir.org. Please give me or Gary C. Smith a call at 309/343-0704, for any additional information.