Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I would state that in 1995, Congress learned of an assault on charitable giving that was being waged in a class action lawsuit underway in the Federal court in Texas. The defendants in the case, a collection of charitable organizations which included the Lutheran Church, the United Way, and Northwestern University, stood accused of violating the antitrust laws by agreeing to use the same annuity rate when is offering donors charitable gift annuities. Charitable gift annuities are a vehicle for charitable giving. The donor gives a charitable organization a sum of money. In return, the donor receives a charitable deduction and the agreement of the donee to pay back a fixed income for life. Depending on the annuity rate used, the value of the life income in relation to the total donation fluctuates, as does the amount of the charitable deduction. Finding that there were strong public policy reasons to protect charitable organizations from antitrust suits in this context, the 104th Congress enacted the Charitable Gift Annuity Antitrust Relief Act of 1995.”