On Estate Tax Repeal and Charitable Bequests

This note reviews trends in charitable bequests over the past two decades. It provides a time series on bequests and wealth reported by estates, a snapshot of the dispersion in the degree of generosity, as well as a brief introduction to data sampling issues. It also presents a critical review of the recent literature on the effects of the estate tax on giving. Because of differences in estimation and simulation methodologies, it is difficult to make meaningful comparisons of the various estimates