The Gilded Age: The untold story (or how not to pay taxes on your income)

One of the famous Philadelphia families in the gilded age was the Drexels: and one of the unhappy marriages in that family inspired one of the subplots of the hit series the Gilded age:

But the Drexels left other legacies.

Best known today for Drexel University of course.

 
But one of the Drexels philanthropic acts resulted in the tax code being amended, so that she didn't have to pay taxes on income that she gave to charity.

Full story here at the Arkansas Catholic:

This tax season, Americans have an unexpected figure to thank for one of their most-used deductions. She wasn't an accountant, a lawyer or even a politician, but an actual saint.

St. Katharine Drexel is well known for being a trailblazing figure in the early 20th century, championing the needs of Native Americans and Black Americans, but few know she may have the most lasting impact on philanthropy of any American in U.S. history.

Her unexpected role in the U.S. tax code began at the outbreak of World War I in 1913, which spurred the creation of the federal income tax...by 1917, the tax became a graduated one, sending Mother Katharine's tax bills skyrocketing and potentially endangering the charitable work of her religious order...

By 1924, Mother Katharine and her influential family successfully lobbied Congress for what later became known as the "Philadelphia nun provision." Under the provision, anyone who had given 90% of their income to the charity for the previous 10 years was exempt from income taxes...

The "Philadelphia nun provision" was eventually written out of the tax code in 1969, but Mother Katharine's influence on U.S. philanthropy can't be understated, Branch said. "The official language may be out of the code, but in general, it is the genesis of the charitable deduction that still exists," he said..

So who was Mother Katherine? A pioneer in education for black and Native American minorities.

As an heiress, she had a large income, which she used to fund educational efforts for minorities.

She saw the need for sisters to work to help, but when she asked the Pope for advice, he told her to do it herself. Voila, she started a new order of sisters, dedicated to educating blacks and Native Americans.

Indeed, I was a bit startled, when attending a meeting in the Tribal council of the Osage tribe, to find her (and another local nun)  portrayed in a mural of the history of the tribe, because of their work in education of tribal members.

But it might be the sister's education of black children that has a more lasting legacy: at a time when black schools were inferior they gave local children an alternative to get a better education.

My mother would send small donations to a friend of a friend who belonged to Mother Katherine's order, and taught in a black school in Lousiana.

Nowadays, the order is essentially gone: maybe because their work is no longer needed thanks to the civil rights movement that integrated public schools.

But one of her legacies is Xavier University.

headsup from the old curmudgeon blogspot.