It is not often that a nice idea comes along supported by silly reasoning. But right before the end of 2010, that's exactly what happened.

The headline stated, "Professors start website for rich to give back tax cuts," and the story noted that four professors from prestigious universities had started a website whose motto is "Give It Back For Jobs."

I had to check it out. The site allows you to calculate your "tax cut" from the continuation of existing tax rates, and then encourages you to donate the savings to charity.

This effort reminded me of the early 2000s, when Americans were given a one-time tax rebate of $300 per person. At the time I started a campaign in my church called "Rebates for Jesus." The reasoning was simple: You received a rebate you weren't expecting, so why not donate it to the church or other charity that does good works? The idea was about as popular as snow cones during last month's blizzard. We raised a few hundred dollars.

You can see why this new idea, fully supported by a website and well-educated professors, caught my attention. But there are two aspects of the website that are downright silly. The first is their notion of a "tax cut." There is no tax cut this year. Congress and President Obama simply continued the existing tax rates for the next two years. If you spent all of your money last year, continuing the existing tax rates will not provide more money to donate to charity. Observant readers will note that there is a form of a tax cut in 2011 when the payroll tax is reduced by two percent. While that is true, the website calculations explicitly ignore that reduction. To quote: "Our calculations of the tax cut do not include the 2% reduction in the payroll (OASDI) tax rate on employees. That reduction represents the kind of fair and stimulative fiscal policy that we hope to mimic and encourage."

The second aspect of the website that is silly is the notion that you must give your non-tax-cut to charity so there can be jobs. I've been blessed in my career to have worked for county, state and federal governments, as well as two non-profits and private businesses. I've enjoyed my work in all sectors of the economy, but I've never had to guess where the jobs are really created; they're created in the private sector. Even government and non-profit jobs rely on the private sector for their source of revenues, whether it be from taxes or charitable gifts.

To illustrate that point, let's assume that you are a completely selfish person and decide to spend your non-tax-cut. On second thought, let's make this more realistic and talk about the payroll tax cut you really are receiving in 2011. For someone with $50,000 in wages, that's an extra $1,000. What could you - the selfish person - do with that extra money?

Perhaps you'd like to go out to a nice restaurant. You could probably go out every month, bring a loved one, have a nice dinner and leave a generous tip for the wait staff. By doing so, have you been "selfish?" Yes, of course. But at the same time, you've also provided jobs for the dishwasher, manager, waiter, host or hostess, busboys, food services vendor, farmer and everyone else associated with the restaurant too numerous to mention. My first job was in a restaurant, and I can assure you all of these people appreciate your patronage.

Maybe that was a bad example. Let's try another.

Perhaps you could buy a shirt that was manufactured overseas. That would really be selfish, you think to yourself, because garment workers in foreign countries tend to earn low wages. But before you start feeling too guilty, it's necessary to determine if the wage paid to the worker assembling your shirt is indeed low - or does it provide an opportunity for her and her family that otherwise isn't available? There is only one person who can answer that question, but I truly don't know how to reach out to her and ask. Even so, jobs are provided to the clothing producer, the truck driver, the cargo container workers, the seamen who navigate the ship, the dockworkers, the retail sales clerk and everyone else associated with that single shirt.

Maybe that too was a bad example. Perhaps you are really, really selfish and decide to keep all of the payroll tax savings for yourself by investing them. Now that would truly be selfish. After all, you'd just be putting that money into a company's stock or bond. In that case, the company could use your money to expand its production line or to improve its product so it could be more useful to the people who want to buy it. By doing so, the company would need to expand and provide more jobs to its employees, suppliers, shippers, raw material providers, retailers and everyone else associated with your company too numerous to mention.

I guess that was another bad example. Perhaps you could bury your tax savings in the backyard. That would benefit … nobody.

So how can we have a website, developed by prestigious professors, that is so silly? For guidance, we can look to Adam Smith who published "The Wealth of Nations" in 1776:

"…Five years have seldom passed away, in which some book or pamphlet has not been published, written, too, with such abilities as to gain some authority with the public… Many of them have been written by very candid and very intelligent people, who wrote nothing but what they believed, and for no other reason but because they believed it."

We'll have to update Adam's words and include "websites."

Having said that, let's give the professors credit for one good idea: giving to charity. For despite the wonders of our economy and all the prosperity it creates, there are people who suffer, who experience periods of crisis, or who are chronically on society's fringe. How should we respond? For guidance, we can look to texts much older than Adam Smith: "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me..."

No updating those words is needed.

Tom McGuigan is a certified financial planner at Burns Advisory Group, 187-B Boston Post Road, Old Lyme, CT 06371, (860) 434-5999. tmcguigan@burnsag.com