Charitable bequests are an important source of philanthropic support. Unlike bequests to children which can be taxed at a maximum statutory rate of 0.55, such transfers are exempt from estate taxation. Thus, by lowering the price of charitable giving, the estate tax may influence the disposition...

This paper examines the pattern of charitable giving during life and at death. It employs a 10-year panel data of income tax returns and their associated estate tax returns. The income tax returns provide information on charitable contributions while the estate tax returns provide information on...

Much of the literature on the effects of estate taxation on charitable bequests has relied on cross sectional data, reflecting the uniqueness of death. Few have explored longitudinal data to exploit exogenous variations in tax regimes. The latter, however, continue to be susceptible to omitted...

This paper provides a brief summary of the rules that govern the tax treatment of charitable gifts, and presents a statistical overview of recent trends in charitable giving. For each of individuals, corporations, estates, and fiduciaries, tax return data is employed to describe the profile of...