Is your city stingy or generous?

I saw this study a couple weeks ago, and it pissed me off right away.

What bugged me was how the study was done.

To come up with these lists, The Chronicle of Philanthropy analyzed 1997 tax returns for households earning more than $50,000 a year that itemized deductions, including charity donations, reports The Associated Press. To determine the amount of discretionary income, the researchers deducted food, taxes, and other basic living costs from total incomes. It from this number that the percentage of charitable donations was calculated.

So only households making more than $50K can make donations now?

And everyone who makes donations records it for their taxes?

I call bullshit.

We donate many things - material and otherwise. We've never recorded it. How do you deduct time spent volunteering?

I guess the study is fair by whatever standards the institue has - households making more than $50K must donate more to them.

Look, many people who volunteer at the Crisis Center are former clients - they'll never make $50K a year.

You can't measure time for your taxes, though you can for scholarships!

I'll be donating time and only time (broke college student) over the next four years, and probably long into the future.

Will I ever make more then $50K? Will I ever deduct the books I donate?

Maybe, and hell no.

So I'm stingy.

Does this bug anyone else?