Applies comparative and theoretical perspectives to not-for-profit law, taxation and regulation to deepen understanding of the sector.Legal experts address fundamental questions about not-for-profit law, including how charity is defined, how the sector is regulated and how support is delivered through the tax system in different jurisdictions. Contributors discuss fundamental concerns about the role of the not-for-profit law sector and rationale for government support.Legal experts address fundamental questions about not-for-profit law, including how charity is defined, how the sector is regulated and how support is delivered through the tax system in different jurisdictions. Contributors discuss fundamental concerns about the role of the not-for-profit law sector and rationale for government support.The law and policy applicable to the not-for-profit sector is of growing importance around the world. In this book, legal experts address fundamental questions about not-for-profit law from a range of theoretical and comparative perspectives. The essays provide scholarly analysis of not-for-profit law, organised around four themes: (1) Politics, in the broader sense of living as a community, and the narrower sense of political power; (2) Charity, how it is defined and changes in its meaning over time; (3) Taxation, including the rationale for government support of the sector through the tax system; (4) Regulation, which is of increasing significance as governments establish increasingly complex forms of regulation of not-for-profit activity. The fundamental aim of the book is to deepen our understanding of not-for-profit law and of the rationales and modes of government support for the not-for-profit sector.Introduction: theoretical and comparative perspectives on not-for-profit law Matthew Harding, Ann O'Connell and Miranda Stewart; Part I. Politics: 1. Philanthropy's function: a neo-classical reconsideration Rob Atkinson; 2. Archimedes, Aid/Watch, constitutional leverlÓ^