A proposed change to federal income tax laws would eliminate deductions from taxable income for donations a taxpayer has made to charitable and educational institutions. If this change were adopted, wealthy individuals would no longer be permitted such deductions. Therefore, many charitable and institutions would have to reduce services, and some would have to close their doors.

The argument above assumes which of the following?

(A) Without incentives offered by federal income tax laws, at least some wealthy individuals would not donate as much money to charitable and educational institutions as they otherwis would have.

(B) Money contributed by individuals who make their donations because of provisions in the federal tax laws provides the only source of funding for many charitable and educational institutions.

(C) The primary reason for not adopting the proposed change in the federal income tax laws cited above is to protect wealthy individuals from having to pay higher taxes.

(D) Wealthy individuals who donate money to charitable and educational institutions are the only individuals who donate money to such institutions.

(E) Income tax laws should be changed to make donations to charitable and educational institutions the only permissible deductions from taxable income.
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I got it down to A and D

Please explain your answer

A too

The conclusion assumed that rich people only donate because they get the tax break.

I was pondering... and yes, what you said is very true. I didn't get the subtlety at first, but reading two choices carefully, they're indeed different

A) shows the relationship between tax break and donation
D) simply indicates that the rich donates (may be affected by the tax break or not, who knows?)

Thx, gmatnub, and everyone who replied

BTW, OA is A

(B) Money contributed by individuals who make their donations because of provisions in the federal tax laws provides the only source of funding for many charitable and educational institutions.

Yes. B looks little extreme as it mentioned 'The federal tax laws provides the only source of funding''

Hi Marcab,

The key word is as has been pointed out 'only'.

In your example I don't think B would be good either. Even if it was that the charities had to stop functioning, that doesn't mean that the tax relief donors were the only ones. For example if they had made up 99% of the donations, and that were to be taken away the charities would probably still have to stop functioning, yet the 1% of other donors would mean that the tax relief donors were not the 'only' donors.

Hope that helps.

james
_________________

Former GMAT Pill student, now on staff. Used GMATPILL OG 12 and nothing else: 770 (48,48) & 6.0



... and more

Hi Marcab,

My theory was that even if a charity only has 10% of its former donations 'closing the doors' might be necessary anyway. As with 10% they can't even perform the basic services.

Whether you agree with this idea or not, I still think it puts an element of doubt into 'B' which makes the word 'only' difficult.
_________________

Former GMAT Pill student, now on staff. Used GMATPILL OG 12 and nothing else: 770 (48,48) & 6.0



... and more

Hi Marcab

Lets say if we have to get inference of the argument instead of Assumption of argument?

Then even in that case - I believe (A) would be correct .Agree?

B and D also base on the assumptions that without the incentive, some wealthy people won't donate as much as they would otherwise. So A is the prime assumptions.

I chose B wrongly. But B is wrong not for the word ONLY. B also relies on A as the assumption.

This is a good 'assumption question'