Abstract
ABSTRACT: People have been giving away their money, property, and time to others for millennia. What's novel about the contemporary practice of philanthropy is the availability of tax incentives to give money away. Such incentives are built into tax systems in nearly all developed and many developing democracies. In this sense, philanthropy is not an invention of the state but ought to be viewed today as an artifact of the state. This paper specifies and assesses three possible justifications for the existence of tax incentives for charitable giving, identifies a distinctive role for philanthropy in democracies, and argues for a fundamental redesign of the current legal framework governing philanthropy. Empirically, giving to assist the needy and care for strangers is an uncommon form of giving in the United States. Normatively, it is but one potential justification for philanthropy.
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