I am a regular blood donor and I have always wondered why the government doesn't help in the blood donation effort by giving donors a tax deduction for every donation. Since you can only give whole blood every two months, a $25 deduction would only be $150/yr. It would be like a charitable donation on the tax forms. Since the collection agencies take your SS number anyway, it could be tracked and reported. A similar deduction could be given to those who give through the plasma program that allows more donations per year, but takes a longer time to do at the donation site.
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You get my vote. One consideration however would be the cost of organizing all the myriad donor centers, from high-tech university hospitals, to volunteer run Red Cross centers to ensure that the blood donation credit got to the IRS. That in and of itself might be a massive expenditure.
Sadly, there are many people who cannot give blood. I believe that there is a weight limit. If you have had ceratin diseases in the past. Those who have had certain vaccinations recently cannot give. I lived in England for a year in the 1980's and cannot donate because of it (concern for mad-cow disease...really!) I fear that the inability of significant parts of the population will mean that the tax benefit cannot be universally offered. Not that tax benefits are all universally offered anyway...however, I suspect that someone with one of the exclusions would challenge this.
I am so tired of tax incentives being the lazy mechanism to any entrepreneurial public policy initiative. By giving a tax break, effectively you're taxing the general populous (because of increased taxes needed to offset the revenue shortfall of the tax incentive).
Costs should be borne directly by those who receive the benefits wherever possible. The public good of a better blood supply can still be achieved if that's done.
Instead of tax bennies, just make it federal law that if you receive blood you *pay* a "blood deposit" (in $). Then, assuming you're not dead and physically able, you can get the deposit back if you give back, say, twice as much as you were given. The deposit can be waived for those who can't give blood (be they now dead or whatever). That's why I imagine you have to give back more than you received. Else, you can also forego the deposit and those funds fund administration and/or blood donor compensation.
There are 2 databases regarding blood donations.The webmaster should combine the 2. Capitalization in the idea title may be a factor.The other link is a bit more positive.
The other idea is here. Since these are separate solutions to the same problem, it might be interesting to read both, but they merit separate discussions.
It used to be the case that people were paid upon delivery for their blood, so it was an easy way for a street person (drunk, etc) to get cash. Then they figured out that these people were not the best source of good blood, and that practice was eliminated.
I don't think this idea would be subject to that problem, because people who are savvy enough to give blood now in order to save money next April -- are in a different category and probably have grade-a blood.
I like!
An adaptation that might reduce the administrative burden, and would give local businesses a way to support the blood drive, would be to give gift certificates to local stores. Give blood and get $25 off at REI. Give blood and receive two free passes to the movies. The blood donor would be offered a variety of prizes at the conclusion of the blood donation procedure, along with the cookies and juice.