Universal charitable deduction helps people address local needs

Don’t itemize your taxes but still want to streamline your H&R Block experience this tax season? You’re in luck.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers led by U.S. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., introduced a bill earlier this month that would let you do just that.

If enacted, the Charitable Act would allow charitable givers who don’t itemize — so, don’t deduct things like mortgage interest and medical expenses from their taxable income – to nonetheless claim a charitable deduction and get money back on their taxes beginning in the 2023 tax year. Lawmakers should support this common-sense legislation.

guarantees a broader array of givers a voice in our country’s philanthropic future, creating a nonprofit ecosystem that is more inclusive and that better reflects the charitable vision of all Americans.

Carolyn Bolton

American philanthropy is increasingly a thing reserved for the wealthy – a top-down system for mega-donors to direct and execute their charitable vision.

The author is with Donors Trust

Creating a universal deduction would create more of a bottom-up system of philanthropy that better represents American values.

The kitchen and its nonprofit were founded after restaurateurs Diane and Rob Perez identified a troubling pattern of recovering employees falling back into the cycle of drug abuse after only a couple of weeks on the job.

Mr. Perez said last year in his testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business & Entrepreneurship that he and his wife “lost 10 of (their) employees to fatal overdoses” in the eight years preceding the start of their charitable enterprise.

The recent shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville was a powerful gut punch. Our thoughts can’t help but run through images of what happened from the deaths to the ensuing aftermath for those who survived. The photo of the girl in the bus with her agonizing expression brought instant tears. We’re helpless to offer any comfort.

Yet before the dead were even driven from the school, once again the liberal agenda, which uses these terrible events against guns, was in our face. In this case, some of the ammunition was taken away because the shooter was identified as a trans. This threw the left for a curve.

And as irony would have it, there’s even a trans group formed who are learning how to shoot and using AR’s. The reason? Self-protection.

Let’s put that aside because it is totally irrelevant. So is the immediate magnetic pull toward the guns and the political agenda and motivation to take them away. Never does the left — and our president — ever first focus on the fact that it was a crazy person who pulled the trigger. Not the guns. A human, with obvious mental defects, in all cases, is responsible for the shootings. Humans are the reason; they are the story. As of this writing, the recent shooter’s reason wasn’t released, and we can only speculate why.

You can ban every gun you want, but that doesn’t fix the heads of the shooters. Normal people don’t kill. Millions of normal people have guns, and they will not turn them on another human.

Banning anything in this country won’t change a thing. Drugs used to be illegal, and our streets run red from their abuse. Fentanyl can waltz right into America, and I don’t see a single lawmaker stopping it. President Joe Biden can call for the banning of weapons all he wants, but he turns his back on the open border, allowing the deaths of hundreds of thousands with not a trigger pulled.

California is taking sides with Mexico who are suing American gun manufacturers because they’re blaming them for too many Mexicans being killed. Now that’s rich. How those guns get there I can’t answer. But those triggers are pulled by Mexican killers who have zero regard for life. It also raises another question for me, “Why don’t we sue Mexico for all the drugs they send us used to kill Americans?”

As the bill’s primary sponsor, Sen. Lankford said in a statement earlier this month, “Our nonprofits provide our neighborhoods and families vital job training, compassionate homeless assistance, food in times of crisis, and spiritual counsel during our best and worst days.”

The Charitable Act rewards philanthropic givers with a tax incentive and, ultimately,

This bill does just that, freeing all people to give to the nonprofits that tackle issues in their own community like, for example, DV8 Kitchen Vocational Training Foundation, a Kentucky charity that provides job training for those struggling with addiction.

The charity helps those actively recovering from drug and alcohol abuse earn foodservice certifications and learn valuable skills that make them the perfect candidates for jobs at DV8 Kitchen, a for-profit eatery that employs graduates of the nonprofit vocational-training program.

The couple knew something had to change. Lives were on the line. That’s when people – not profits – became Diane and Rob’s focus. So, the couple reimagined their business model and started their nonprofit.

DV8 helps those struggling with addiction communicate honestly about their vice, which opens the door to building a support system, something Harvard University researchers say is key to climbing out of drug dependency.

Already, the eatery employs nearly 30 people, 95% of whom are in recovery and graduates of the DV8 nonprofit. Its turnover rate is 70% – a seemingly big number but one that’s actually low for the industry. The average

Please see BOLTON on C4

The horrific school shootings are enough to make us puke, but the massive drug deaths are nothing more than statistics on the news when they feel obligated to show the numbers. People are dying every single day. Show those faces too. When was the last time you heard President Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris or any lefty Democrat stand up and shout that eight black kids were killed last night in Chicago? Or 10 in Baltimore? Or 20 were shot in Washington, D.C.? When was the last time you heard that guns should be taken away from the gang members/drug dealers or the cartels taking over our streets?

You can ban all the guns you want, and all that ends up happening is that the innocent people become defenseless. The government takes over and puts the criminals in charge. With all the liberal district attorneys