12/20/05

Superrich Are Not the Most Generous

Middle class Americans are two to six times more generous in the share of their investments that they give to charity than Americans who make more than $10 million., a pioneering study of federal tax data shows.

The least generous of all working-age Americans were among the young and prosperous - those 285 taxpayers age 35 and under who made more than $10 million - and the 18,600 taxpayers making $500,000 to $1 million.

On average these two groups made charitable gifts equal to 0.4 percent of their assets, while people the same age who made $50,000 to $100,000 gave gifts equal to more than 2.5 percent of their investment assets, six times that of their far wealthier peers.

[Above figures based on 2003, the latest year for which Internal Revenue Service data is available]

[Excerpted from an article by David Cay Johnston, The New York Times]

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