tjh290633 wrote:It may be pertinent to point out that charitable donations in the UK only raise the boundary between the basic rate of tax and the higher rate if Gift Aid is claimed. In the USA I believe that the donation takes that amount of the donor's personal income out of the scope of income tax, always provided that the appropriate paperwork is completed.
Yes, in the US you enter your charitable donations on your income tax form and they reduce, dollar for dollar, the amount of your income that is liable for taxation. That assumes that you itemise your deductions rather than claim the standard deduction, which most wealthier folks would do.
Also note that the US has something called Alternative Minimum Taxation. The purpose of this is to ensure that even those who have a large amount of deductions do at least pay some tax. Crucially, charitable deductions are exempt meaning that if you donate enough to charity in a tax year, then you may pay no tax. And those donations may be assets as well as cash.
As I hinted at above, Americans may be more generous than Canadians and Europeans because the marginal rates of tax are lower in the US, and the incentives for charitable giving are more generous. Nothing kills the desire to help those less well off than yourself than the feeling that the government is robbing you blind and then spraying it indiscriminately at anyone with a pulse.