Senate Finance Hearing and Corporate Disclosure

On June 22, 2004, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee began its inquiry into possible reforms in the nonprofit sector with a wide-ranging hearing that focused on abuses in the industry, governance challenges and ways to improve regulatory oversight. Prior to that meeting, the Finance Committee released a discussion draft containing numerous proposals for legislative reforms affecting the nonprofit sector. One proposal in the discussion draft that will directly affect corporate grantmakers is section F-5, which would require publicly-traded corporations to file annually with the IRS a return showing all gifts over $10,000 for which a charitable deduction is claimed.

In its written response to the Senate Finance Committee's discussion draft and consistent with the position the Committee on Corporate Grantmaking and the Council supported during the Sarbanes-Oxley debate in 2002 and before that, as part of the Gillmor legislation, the Council reiterated its support for a disclosure requirement for charitable gifts of more than $25,000.The full text of the Council's written response to the Senate Finance Committee  is available on the Council website. The section on public disclosure of corporate gifts appears on page 11 of the document.