By STAFF

NEWS@DAILYLEADER.COM

Where does Lincoln County rank in the “most generous” counties in Mississippi?

According to a study of IRS data by SmartAsset, Brookhaven’s county ranks 20th in the state’s 82 counties for 2022.

The study measured how much people donate as a percentage of their net income, and the proportion of people in each county who make charitable donations.

Nationally, Lincoln County ranked 628, with about 1.61 percent of income donated to charitable causes each year, by 4.63 percent of taxpayers.

Number 1 in the state was Madison County, with 2.74 percent of income donated by 13.88 percent of residents. Across the state, 1.26 of income was donated by 4.03 percent of people filing tax returns.

Other Southwest Mississippi counties ranked: 30, Jefferson; 32, Pike; 34, Lawrence; 41, Walthall; 52, Amite; 58, Copiah; and 73, Franklin.

Nationally, Morgan County, Utah, ranked first, with 4.62 percent of income donated by 22.73 percent of residents. The largest percentage of people donating to charity was in Falls Church, Virginia, where 25.82 percent of residents listed donations. Benton County, Arkansas, residents donated the largest percentage of income — 7.91 percent.

Methodology

To find the most generous places, SmartAsset compared two factors in each county: the amount of money people donate as a percentage of their net income, and the proportion of people who made charitable donations.

To determine the amount of money that people donate as a percentage of their income, SA first calculated the net income for everyone in each county. To do this, SA looked at tax return data and accounted for federal, state and local taxes paid. SA also accounted for deductible entries, including mortgage interest, mortgage points and mortgage insurance payments. SA then divided each county’s total charitable donations by its total net income to see the amount of money residents in each county have donated relative to their income.

Next, SA measured the total number of individual tax returns that show charitable contributions and divided that by the total number of returns in each county. This gave the proportion of people in each county who make charitable donations. SA then indexed and equally weighted the two factors to yield the Most Charitable Places Index.