George Soros’s $18 Billion Tax Shelter The wealthy have tucked billions into private nonprofits—wher

[Sig]

Why paying taxes is better than donating the money to foundations:
1. Paying taxes will benefit 'every' citizen.
2. Giving to foundations will only benefit own self (e.g. for political mileage, political control, business/political favors, and so on).

Instead of the money going to the infrastructure of the country, it is being used to serve the elites (e.g. Clinton foundation).

It's not an either/or, like most things in life this is nuanced and not black and white. If you look at how the Gates foundation operates, much of what they do is designed to leverage the tax based in a country, i.e. they set up programs and support that make government programs more effective and in many cases use peer pressure to get governments to act in the best interest of their citizens. And since USAID is less than 1% of the U.S. budget, if I want to have an impact in the places where the Gates Foundation is working, paying U.S. taxes isn't going to help much. Finally, after working in the federal government for over 20 years I can tell you that foundations are often able to spend money much more effectively than the federal government for structural reasons; for example, the Gates Foundation can find a top supply chain guy and pay him $250,000 a year with bonuses based on performance. The max a federal employee can be paid is $161,900 and that impacts who you're able to hire. Not to mention the amount of bureaucratic crap a civil servant has to deal with which is no-one's fault and not something that can be eliminated, but is simply inherent in running a multi-million employee public entity run by political appointees subject to full public accountability. As a federal employee I would have welcomed the opportunity to have a well-run NGO work with us so we could both take advantage of the chance to balance out our respective strengths and weaknesses.
A bunch of smart well meaning people would probably also argue that tax dollars also go to serve "the elites", but no need to get off on a political rant.

 

[newwurldmn]

Actually, since all of them operate as non-profits, pretty much every bit information about what they do is available to the public. Oddly enough, that money makes a hell of a difference.

For any marginal dollar, given a choice between 50c of it going to wage a war or sponsor police brutality, I prefer to donate it and see it used for a good cause. I have been trying to donate as much of my income as I can (targeting 50% in good years). While at my income level it does not make sense to have my own foundation, i use the foundation available to the fund employees and also use donor-advised funds.

You can create a foundation on reasonable amounts of money (as little as a million dollars). Vanguard will help you set it up.

I agree with your principles. I was only making this statement that while I wouldn't consider Soros to be tax evading, the IKEA Guy clearly is.

 

[Maverick74]

Actually, since all of them operate as non-profits, pretty much every bit information about what they do is available to the public. Oddly enough, that money makes a hell of a difference.

For any marginal dollar, given a choice between 50c of it going to wage a war or sponsor police brutality, I prefer to donate it and see it used for a good cause. I have been trying to donate as much of my income as I can (targeting 50% in good years). While at my income level it does not make sense to have my own foundation, i use the foundation available to the fund employees and also use donor-advised funds.

This is kind of silly. I doubt many people on here think money that goes to the Koch foundation is going to a good cause and I rarely hear people say nice things about the enormous amount money that goes to churches. Taxes do benefit everyone in some form or another. The war comment is statistically odd. Over the last 100 years less then a fraction of 1% has gone to war and I don't even know where to start on police brutality. One, they we don't use federal tax dollars to fund police. And two, whether cops abuse their power or not is not determined by their pay although I suspect if there is a causation argument, the lower cops get paid, the more likely they are to abuse...just a hunch. This is not directed at you sle, I just hate this argument I hear for why people don't want to pay taxes. You live in the most prosperous nation on earth, pay for it.

 

[sle]

I doubt many people on here think money that goes to the Koch foundation is going to a good cause and I rarely hear people say nice things about the enormous amount money that goes to churches.

I hear what you are saying but I think there is an important distinction. The Koch foundation is primarily a political organization and most of it's activity is aimed to effect political change (1). From my perspective, they are as much of a non-profit as the DNC or the GOP - personally, I think no political donations should be tax deductible. More or less the same applies to the religious organizations. In their majority, they do nothing concrete but enrich themselves and broaden their influence. In fact, I think the ability to write off political and religious contributions is one of the primary threats to whatever democracy we have left.

Taxes do benefit everyone in some form or another.

Some more and some less, let's be honest. Personally, I'd feel much better if, while in the same tax bracket, more of the money went to the local budget.

The war comment is statistically odd. Over the last 100 years less then a fraction of 1% has gone to war

How do you arrive at that number? Unless defense spending as a fraction of federal budged has increased significantly very recently, I don't see how 1% number is true. If you take total spending, discretionary plus mandatory, 15-17% are usually allocated to the defense (or "homeland security" whatever that is) and another 3-4 are allocated to the veteran services (2). So out of every dollar I pay in federal taxes, 20 cents goes to support the military.

(1) A tiny sliver of Koch foundation activities is actually good for the world, things like grants to the UNCF. Same goes the the religious organizations.

(2) I am by no means saying that veterans do not deserve it, but these 4% of the budget can be thought as "arrears" on some prior military spending. I am not even sure why it's separated into a distinct budget line.

 

[sprstpd]

This is not directed at you sle, I just hate this argument I hear for why people don't want to pay taxes. You live in the most prosperous nation on earth, pay for it.

If only US corporations shared your attitude.

 

[SunTrader]

Governments don't earn money, they just confiscate it.

Individuals earn it. Individuals should decide where to spend or donate it.

 

[SunTrader]

This is kind of silly. I doubt many people on here think money that goes to the Koch foundation is going to a good cause and I rarely hear people say nice things about the enormous amount money that goes to churches. Taxes do benefit everyone in some form or another. The war comment is statistically odd. Over the last 100 years less then a fraction of 1% has gone to war and I don't even know where to start on police brutality. One, they we don't use federal tax dollars to fund police. And two, whether cops abuse their power or not is not determined by their pay although I suspect if there is a causation argument, the lower cops get paid, the more likely they are to abuse...just a hunch. This is not directed at you sle, I just hate this argument I hear for why people don't want to pay taxes. You live in the most prosperous nation on earth, pay for it.

Silly is what you posted.

Trillions have gone to defense offense. And yes federal tax money has gone to local and state police depts. Not mention "deals" on army surplus like HumVees and assault vehicles etc etc.

 

[Sig]

Governments don't earn money, they just confiscate it.

Individuals earn it. Individuals should decide where to spend or donate it.

So I assume you must live in Somalia then? Either that or you're happy to take advantage of all the benefits government brings you but don't think you should have to pay for it? Pretty sure Maverick had exactly your type in mind with his comment about the hypocrisy of those living in the most prosperous nation on Earth and thinking they shouldn't have to pay for it, nice job illustrating his point!

 

[Sig]

Silly is what you posted.

Trillions have gone to defense offense. And yes federal tax money has gone to local and state police depts. Not mention "deals" on army surplus like HumVees and assault vehicles etc etc.

And just to demonstrate I'm not a mindless ideolog, this is correct. As a retired military member I agree that putting nearly 60% of our discretionary budget into our military to ensure we spend more that the next 7 countries combined is absurd. However that's a long way from saying we shouldn't have a tax supported military at all. Take a look at the free rider effect that happens in rural subscription fire services, multiply that by a thousand to see what happens in your version of Utopia.

 

[ElCubano]

Well, sending money to Washington has benefited some citizens -- e.g. the Fanjul family.

Pepe don't f**k around. They have single handedly destroyed the Everglades.