[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 20 (Tuesday, February 4, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Page S1885]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. DORGAN (for himself, Mr. Kerry, and Ms. Snowe):
  S. 283. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to allow 
tax-free distributions from individual retirement accounts for 
charitable purposes; to the Committee on Finance.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, today I'm joined by Senators Kerry and 
Snowe in re-introducing the Public Good IRA Rollover Act, legislation 
to allow taxpayers to make tax-free distributions from their individual 
retirement accounts, IRAs, for gifts to charity.
  It is more important than ever to provide support to our nation's 
charitable organizations. Our struggling economy is placing an enormous 
financial strain on many charities, severely curtailing their funding 
at a time when the need for their services is greatest.
  I have heard from charities that people frequently ask them about 
using their IRAs to make charitable donations. However, many donors 
decide not to make a gift from their IRAs after they are told about the 
potential tax consequences under current law. Our IRA charitable 
rollover legislation would eliminate this concern. This single change 
to the Tax Code could put billions of additional dollars from a new 
source to work for the public good. A Salvation Army official once said 
that providing for IRA charitable rollovers ``would be the single most 
important piece of legislation in the history of public charitable 
support in this country.''
  Over the years, a number of legislative proposals have been discussed 
in Congress to increase charitable giving. In his Fiscal Year 2004 
budget, President Bush has proposed a substantial package of tax 
incentives to encourage charitable giving, including a proposal to 
allow individuals to make certain tax-free charitable IRA distributions 
after age 65.
  The President's charitable IRA proposal has a lot of merit, but the 
Public Good IRA Rollover Act is superior in an important respect: by 
allowing tax-free life-income gifts from an IRA. Life-income gifts 
involve the donation of assets to a charity, where the giver retains an 
income stream from those assets for a defined period. Life-income gifts 
are an important tool for charities to raise much needed funds, and 
would receive a substantial boost if they could be made from IRAs, but 
they are wholly ignored in the Administration's proposal. Under our 
proposed Public Good IRA Rollover Act, individuals would be allowed to 
make tax-free charitable life-income gifts at the age of 59\1/2\. 
Similar provisions were added to a major charitable tax incentive bill 
reported by the Senate Finance Committee last year, but were not 
ultimately enacted.
  As the Finance Committee begins anew to consider a charitable giving 
tax incentive package in the near future, I urge them to adopt once 
again the IRA charitable rollover approach used in the Public Good IRA 
Rollover Act, instead of the approach recently outlined in the 
President's budget.
  The benefits of our approach are two-fold. First, the life-income 
gift provision in our legislation would stimulate additional charitable 
giving. In addition, people who make life-income gifts often become 
more involved with charities. They serve as volunteers, urge their 
friends and colleagues to make charitable gifts and frequently set up 
additional provisions for charity in their life-time giving plans and 
at death. Second, this approach comes at no extra cost to the 
government when compared to other major charitable IRA rollover 
proposals.
  So I urge my colleagues to consider the Public Good IRA Rollover Act, 
as we undertake efforts in the Senate to craft a charitable giving tax 
incentives bill. As I mentioned at the outset, in these trying times we 
ought to do everything we can to encourage charitable giving. Let us 
remember the old adage that ``we make a living by what we get, but we 
make a life by what we give.''
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