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The Routledge Handbook of Taxation and Philanthropy ventures into a territory that is still widely unexplored. It contains 30 academic contributions that aim to provide a better understanding of whether, why, and how philanthropic initiatives, understood as voluntary contributions for the common good, can and should be fostered by states through tax incentives. The topic has been addressed from a multidisciplinary and multicultural perspective - covering neuroeconomics, sociology, political science, psychology, affective sciences, philosophy, behavioral economy, and law - because of its global and multifaceted nature. It also contains the OECD report on Taxation and Philanthropy released in November 2020, which was prepared in this context as a result of a collaboration with the Geneva Centre for Philanthropy of the University of Geneva. The book is divided into four sections, exploring, respectively, the justification of tax incentives for philanthropy, theoretical and empirical insights about taxes, efficiency and donor behavior in that context, and tax incentives for cross-border philanthropy and for hybrid entities and social entrepreneurship. It is believed that this volume will be a landmark yet only the beginning of a journey in which a lot remains to be studied, learned, and said.

We introduce behavioural philanthropy, a novel interdisciplinary approach examining philanthropic decisions from the perspective of individual decision-makers. Such an approach is relevant to policymakers and law researchers who design tax-based incentives to stimulate private engagement in philanthropy. Behavioural philanthropy relies on insights from psychology, economics, and law to understand the motives that drive individuals, unveil patterns in behaviour, and identify the key forces that shape decisions in the context of philanthropy. In the first section, we highlight the relevance of individual contributions to philanthropy. Following this, we review and discuss extant research that underlies the motivations of individuals engaging in philanthropic behaviours, analyses some weaknesses of the existing approaches, and highlights the benefits of producing data in controlled environments, such as in laboratory settings. We believe that integrating the benefits of these approaches into behavioural philanthropy will: 1) promote the understanding of the psychological and affective mechanisms supporting philanthropic decision making, 2) help build new sound theories that rely on precise computational models and allow for a mechanistic understanding of the complex behaviours in philanthropy, and 3) provide implications for behaviourally informed policy that could help design efficient tax schemes to generate the most impactful giving and welfare systems across the globe.

The present article discusses several tax aspects related to corporate philanthropy. Unlike individual giving, the taxation of corporate philanthropy received – and still receives - little scientific attention. In general, legislator treats corporations as individuals for tax purposes, subjecting them to the same tax incentives for charitable giving. However, the economic research - still rather scarce - on corporate giving behaviour suggests that it is very different from the individual giving. In this article, I argue that policy makers should consider this fact when creating tax incentives for corporate philanthropy.

The present dissertation analyzes fundamental theoretical controversies related to the concept and the justification of corporate taxation. It focuses on legal, historical and public finance aspects of two legal systems: a continental one (Swiss law) and an Anglo-Saxon one (US Law). Part I focuses the analysis of the entity classification rules for corporate tax purposes: which entities are subjected to the corporate tax and under what rules. We conclude that no absolute common feature exists that would justify why certain entities are corporate taxpayers whereas others are not. Part II analyzes legal, philosophical and economic justification and criticisms of the corporate tax: why certain entities are subjected to corporate taxation. We identify several fundamental theoretical and practical controversies of the corporate taxation, such as incompatibility with the principle of individual ability to pay and distortion of the effects of the individual income taxation of corporate stakeholders (not only shareholders).