Americans give billions of dollars per year to charities.  In fact, charitable deductions in 2002 totaled over $136 billion.  According to the IRS Statistics of Income Bulletin (winter 2003-04), here are the average breakdown of claimed deductions for charitable contributions on 2002 tax returns:

• Taxpayers with Adjusted Gross Income between $15,000 to $30,000 averaged charitable contributions of $1,890.
• Taxpayers with AGI between $30,000 and $50,000 averaged $2,006 in charitable contributions.
• Taxpayers with AGI between $50,000 and $100,000 averaged $2,530 in charitable contributions.
• Taxpayers with AGI between $100,000 and $200,000 averaged $3,875 in charitable contributions.
• Taxpayers with AGI over $200,000 averaged $17,354 in charitable contributions.

• Business lessons from snow camping with Boy Scouts This weekend I spent Friday and Saturday in the company of 11 young men and 4 adult leaders on an overnight snow camping expedition in the mountains. This involves digging a cave in the middle of a snowfield, and spending the night in it.  For us, the temperature dropped to......
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