Fighting Hunger Incentive Act of 2015
Floor Speech
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Mr. BECERRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
I think we should clarify something. Every day, Americans donate food, clothes, and money to charities. Millions of Americans do that all the time. Most of those Americans don't expect to get something in return. They do it because it is the right thing to do, and it makes them feel like they are part of the American community. So every day Americans are giving.
Now, the Tax Code happens to also try to encourage us to do more giving, which I think all of us agree is good. So let's remove that from the debate because I think we are confusing folks who might be watching this.
This isn't about trying to give people an incentive to give because Americans are doing it whether or not the Tax Code says to them: We want you to do this.
The issue is this. Under the Tax Code, some Americans--not a majority of Americans, not even a third of Americans, but a fraction of Americans--can take advantage of the provisions in the Tax Code that give them tax breaks for having given something.
You have heard a discussion about food. If you gave canned goods because the boy next door put up a bag and you put canned goods in there and you gave them away, this provision isn't about that. No. There are a fraction of American taxpayers, mostly companies, restaurants, and so forth, who can take advantage of that. You can't. Americans can't take advantage of that provision.
Say you have an IRA, or Individual Retirement Account. Some Americans have an IRA. The majority of Americans don't, but some do. You want to be charitable. Say you have done fairly well. You want to give some of your IRA to a charity. The Tax Code says: We want to incentivize you to do that.
The Tax Code right now says you can give up to $100,000 in your IRA to charity. Guess what? That won't be recognized as income.
How many Americans make $100,000? Not too many--but say you make $100,000. How much are you going to pay in taxes? How many of you have $100,000 in your IRA that you give away to a charity? Well, there are some people who can, and there are some people who do. Guess what? They get a tax break for doing that.
It is a pretty big tax break if you think about how much you would pay in taxes on $100,000 of your income. They get to give that money away. Guess what? They don't get taxed a cent on that $100,000 that they just gave out of that IRA that they can do.
By the way, you don't get to just do it once in your lifetime. Every year, an American can give away $100,000 out of your IRA and get the tax break.
How many Americans do that? A tiny, tiny fraction--but guess what? When you take that IRA rollover tax break and you take that other tax break for those companies that can give away food and you take the other tax breaks for those who have land that they could give away to a charity, guess how much it adds up to?
It adds up to what we, today, provide in funding to do research against breast cancer and all the research funding we put in to do Alzheimer's research, the same amount of money.
When people say, You don't have to worry about the cost of that, you don't have to pay for this--well, we could spend twice as much money to find a cure for breast cancer, twice as much money to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease, if we weren't giving away these tax breaks to somebody who can afford to give away $100,000 in their IRA every year to do good.
By the way, that wealthy American could give $100,000 out of that IRA today, but they get a tax break for doing it. Would that stop them from giving away $100,000 just because they don't get the tax break? I don't think so.
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Mr. BECERRA. I don't think so because you don't have to be wealthy in America to give. We all want to give. In fact, the folks who give the most are the folks who earn the least. They give what they can.
How many times have you been invited to someone's home who you know it is hard for them to put food on the table, and they invite you to eat at their home, and they don't expect you to give them a thing?
We give because we think it is the right thing to do. The Tax Code wants to incent that, and that is good because we want to help charity.
To say that it doesn't have to be paid for, when we have to pay for all the cancer research, for breast cancer, when we have to pay for the research to cure Alzheimer's disease, when we have to pay for those food inspectors to make sure that the food that gets on our table is free of carcinogens and diseases and microbes that could endanger us--absolutely, we have to pay for those things. As it was said earlier, there is no free lunch.
All we are saying is this: Let's do good. If we are going to give someone who is wealthy a chance to do good, let's pay for it. Let's figure out a way to do that because we want to be charitable, but let's not play this game that it doesn't cost somebody in America for this tax break to go mostly to wealthy folks.
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