Australia's Generosity Breaks Record
4 June 2007 at 1:24 pm
More Australians are donating more money to charities and Not for Profit organisations than ever before, and opening their wallets even wider when major disasters such as the Boxing Day tsunami strike.
The latest Tax Deductible Giving report by Queensland University of Technology’s Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies shows the average tax-deductible donations claimed by Australian taxpayers in 2005 were $341, up 26.39 per cent on the previous year.
CPNS director Professor Myles McGregor-Lowndes says that after the massive outpouring of donations to tsunami relief, many organisations feared individual donors would suffer "fatigue" and donations would drop.
Prof McGregor-Lowndes says that in fact, the opposite was true – the Tax Deductible Giving report’s figures show individual Australians expanded their giving as the need arose and did not cut back on their overall level of support for charities.
He says some individual charities may have suffered a drop in giving, but in total the figures are up. Overall, giving actually increased during 2005 due to the public focus on giving and philanthropy.
Prof McGregor-Lowndes says more Australians were becoming donors with 4.3 million, or 38 per cent of taxpayers making tax-deductible donations, up 5 per cent on a decade ago.
He says taxpayers are giving a greater percentage of their income, donating approximately 0.33 per cent of their taxable income, a trend that has been increasing over the past decade from 0.2 per cent.
The report shows that the rich give a greater proportion of their income – those earning more than $1 million in 2005 on average gave $59,000 or 1.98 per cent of their taxable income which is actually down from 2.43 per cent in the previous year.
However the report found that that more people in the $1 million-plus bracket are making and claiming tax-deductible donations.
The Giving Australia report which measures total giving (not just reported tax-deductible gifts by individuals) estimated total giving in 2005 was $11 billion comprising $5.7 billion from individuals, $2 billion from charity gambling or special events and $3.3 billion from business. Tsunami giving was excluded from this total.
The Tax Deductible Giving report is compiled each year by QUT’s Centre of Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies. It also contains a state by state analysis of tax-deductible giving.
To download the Tax Deductible Giving report, visit: http://www.bus.qut.edu.au/research/cpns/publications/currentissue.jsp
Footnote: QUT’s Centre of Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies has also become the first research centre outside North America to gain full membership of the Nonprofit Academic Centres Council.
After a rigorous accreditation application process CPNS has been admitted to the NACC, the world’s leading centre dedicated to promoting and networking philanthropy and Not for Profit sector research and education.
Prof McGregor-Lowndes says the NACC accreditation is recognition of the quality of research and contribution CPNS was making to academic research on the Not for Profit /non-government sector in Australia.
