I think it’s more likely to hurt other charities, but it would be interesting to know the actual stats.
I wonder if the majority of donations to churches are small amounts from individuals that never helped them to itemize anyway? I think a lot of church donations have nothing to do with tax breaks, but this is all guessing on my part. Maybe that’s because I’m stereotyping who goes to church? The average middle or lower class person in the Bible Belt probably wasn’t itemizing anyway since typically they have lowish property tax and a moderate mortgage, and remember the very poor are renting. Maybe it will impact Northeast and West Coast churches more than Southern or Midwest?
Just last week I was considering a lot of tax options and I thought about doing bigger donations, and mine would not have been to a church. Rather, I would give to heart disease, and maybe something to help local children if there is an organization I like that does that. For me to itemize now it’s so out of reach I probably won’t. I will still do some small donations, but this year when I really need to defer income the new standard deduction discourages me from donating, because the threshold is too high. That’s the case this year anyway, because of my specific situation (my husband is out of work as you know). So, if churches were on my radar, I would be deterred by the current tax law.
This is actually something I had wondered years ago. I like the idea of a simpler tax plan without all these loopholes and write-offs. A flatter tax where the rich can’t get out of paying tax as they so often do. At the same time I wondered if the game encouraged investment and charitable donations, and how that would change. Maybe the Trump tax changes will give us a window into that.