Study On Legal Issues Of Charitable Donations

Philanthropy in China has gained momentum since the reform and opening up withgreat progresses made in its legislation and practice. However, many legal issues stillpresent in charitable donations, especially in the defective legal system of charitableinstitutions as an organizer. Charity scandals are frequently disclosed in recent years.In this social context, a study on the legal issues on charitable donations in China isnecessarily launched by the writer with the intention of improving the legal system ofcharitable institutions.Firstly, the legal definition of charitable donation is given and the special roleplayed by charitable institutions in charitable donation is discussed in the paper. It’spointed out that the major issue concerning the regulations on charitable donations inour country lies in a defective legal system of charitable donation. According to casesstudy, the major reasons for this issued are concluded as lack of a legal system ofcharitable donation, government’s biased position on charitable institution and aunsound supervision system of charitable institution. Finally, legal advices onperfecting the charitable institution system in our country are proposed throughanalyzing the charitable institution systems in the US, Britain and Hongkong. Theseadvices are: a)from the angle of legislation, national regulations on charity andvolunteer organizations should be enacted; b)from the perspective of ensuring thelegal independence of regulations on charitable institution, the government shouldcooperate with these institutions and strength the role played by inter-departmentalcoordinators of charity works; c)from the angle of establishing a diversifiedsupervision system of charitable institution, it’s highlighted that we should give fullplay to the legal effect brought by government supervision, internal supervision ofcharitable institutions and social supervision.