This may be the last year you get a charitable tax deduction

[saveliberty]

I do not make charitable donations because of a tax deduction. I do it to help people.

Exactly.

Here's a funny thing. I have started two faith-based non-profits. They both have identical missions, and they both operate in the same geographical area.

For the first one, I did not bother to apply for tax exempt status. To be honest, I just didn't want to do all the fricking paperwork.

For the second one, I had a volunteer who offered to do the paperwork, so I said what the hell.

So we have a perfect lab experiment. Two identical charities. Same operating area. One tax exempt, one not.

Guess which one got the most donations?

Trick question. The tax exempt status had no effect whatsoever on donations.

Nice work g5000.