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Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

nytimes.com

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Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#211

Post by bpodgursky »

kaonashi wrote: post #209
bpodgursky wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step 1: Cure polio Step 2: Donate 99% of your remaining money before death Step 3: ??? Step 4: Profit, when the world is a less shitty place It's really the most devious tax swindle of all time.

It's more like Step 1: Place fortune in a large tax-free foundation Step 2: Invest that wealth as normal, but without the need to pay taxes Step 3: Spend charitable funds in such a manner as to increase the value of investments from step 2

Can you walk me through how it ends in anything other than Gates having given his money away through the Gates foundation? Also, for what it's worth (and I don't think this is even essential to the point), the Gates Foundation has an explicit mandate to spend down all reserves within 20 years of their death:

> Also announced was the decision to spend all of the foundation's resources within 50 years after Bill's and Melinda's deaths.[177][178][179][180] This was later lowered to within 20 years of their death.[181][182] This would close the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust and effectively end the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

(source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundat...)

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#212

Post by loeg »

gok wrote: post #207
loeg wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal income tax deductions are additionally capped at 50% of income (and maybe 30% for unearned income? I forget the specifics). So if Bezos' income is $1/year, basically none of this would be deductible if it came from his personal fortune. That said, I think GP is expressing skepticism that the total $10B figure comes from Bezos' personal fortune rather than being a spending plan for AMZN's business. The articl…

Bezos can avoid that limit by donating his Amazon shares directly

No, he can't. That's exactly what the lower 30% limit is on — gifts of appreciated capital.

If he sold the shares first, he could claim up to the higher 50% limit. But he'd owe capital gains taxes on the sales, which is almost certainly more than the additional deduction.

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#214

Post by gok »

loeg wrote: post #212
gok wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bezos can avoid that limit by donating his Amazon shares directly

No, he can't. That's exactly what the lower 30% limit is on — gifts of appreciated capital. If he sold the shares first, he could claim up to the higher 50% limit. But he'd owe capital gains taxes on the sales, which is almost certainly more than the additional deduction.

He can only deduct up to 30% of his AGI, but also by giving the shares to a foundation he does not realize any of those gains. So the entire donation effectively becomes tax free.

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#215

Post by ahartman00 »

wtracy wrote: post #123
humbledrone wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I frequently see the "they're just doing this for the tax breaks" sentiment for these kinds of donations (especially when the donor is a corporation or hyper-wealthy individual) but I don't understand the reasoning. From what I understand of tax deductions, a donation of $X basically means that the donor can skip paying taxes on $X of income. This results in a savings of tax% * $X, which is always The tax deduction a…

The argument seems to be that the donor is not making any actual financial sacrifice, and therefore shouldn't enjoy any publicity or goodwill for their non-sacrifice. There's also this cynical idea that these donations are made purely for PR purposes, not out of any desire to do good. But that's intangible and unquantifiable.

"donations are made purely for PR purposes, not out of any desire to do good"

I dont understand this sentiment(not saying you agree with it). Let's express this as a contract: in exchange for 3 compliments, 4 pats on the back, and 2 rounds of applause, $WEALTHY_PERSON agrees to donate $LARGE_AMOUNT to a charitable cause. Let's also assume that $WEALTHY_PERSON is proficient in business, and wont continue to contract with parties who do not honor their end of the bargain.

Assuming you want these charitable contributions to continue, would it not be prudent to give them their 3 compliments, 4 pats on the back, and 2 rounds of applause??

Not that I am saying all wealthy people donate for no other reason than for pr. Just that if you think that, you might not want to go out of your way to tell them that they are not getting what they wanted.

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#216

Post by rapind »

DennisP wrote: post #126
rapind wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We shouldn't care because it's better that a billionaire chooses where that money goes instead of a democratically elected government? I'm not poking fun either. That's really what you seem to be saying. Does this still work if he puts this money towards a cause you're not keen of?

So far as 538 can figure out, our democratically-elected government has spent less than $10 billion fighting climate change in the past 25 years put together. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-much-is-the-governm... So personally I'm not impressed with our government's ability to allocate funds towards useful causes. If another billionaire spends their money on a cause I don't care about so much, fine, at leas…

Parent was talking about giving a 100% tax break to him because he agrees with the cause.

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#217

Post by rapind »

admiral33 wrote: post #185
Ididntdothis wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Billionaire seems to be making better decisions.” Don’t buy into that. Otherwise we’ll soon have a dictator who gets things “done”. Part of the problem with democratic governments not working well is that the system gets manipulated by rich guys pushing their personal agenda.

So you suggest taking power away from CEOs, putting into the hands of the government (effectively making it the CEO) which has police, military, and prisons? That is how you get a dictator. Between CEOs and governments, which has a historically higher body count? Who's jailed more people for not agreeing with them? You say the problem with democratic governments not working well is that it gets manipulated by rich gu…

What you have right now is crony capitalism, where CEOs have a massive influence over government, and use that to enact their agendas (corporate socialism). We're already at big business and government being the same thing.

I don't see anyone in this thread suggesting putting more power into the hands of the government. How about we let the billionaires spend money on the causes they want and just stay out of it (NO tax breaks). That's actually less government.

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#218

Post by kaonashi »

bpodgursky wrote: post #211
kaonashi wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like Step 1: Place fortune in a large tax-free foundation Step 2: Invest that wealth as normal, but without the need to pay taxes Step 3: Spend charitable funds in such a manner as to increase the value of investments from step 2

Can you walk me through how it ends in anything other than Gates having given his money away through the Gates foundation? Also, for what it's worth (and I don't think this is even essential to the point), the Gates Foundation has an explicit mandate to spend down all reserves within 20 years of their death: > Also announced was the decision to spend all of the foundation's resources within 50 years after Bill's and…

He doesn't 'give money away' no-string-attached. He uses the donations to control the way the economy deals with the externalities of capitalism. It's fundamentally anti-democratic for that share of the world's economy to be driven by the whims of one man.

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#219

Post by kirstenbirgit »

tdstein wrote: post #35
kirstenbirgit wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think these kinds of opinions are really dangerous–we cannot just expect society to go back to the stone age. It's why the average human is blocking climate change out, the changes have to come in the form of e.g. CO2 taxes and broad regulation. Climate is not the responsibility of the individual citizen. It's bad enough as it is, we don't need to feel guilty every day about small things like using a plastic straw…

Sharing shit information like this is why the average human is blocking climate change out. No one is suggesting going back to the Stone Age. Your plastic straw use isn’t warming the planet. But, you should consider the impact flying a jet has on the earth.

Is that your argument?

Noone is perfect. Greta eschewed the plane for a yacht, and guess what, people like you are still complaining. This is why people are blocking it out and are angry at her. How the can anyone win with this logic?

We can't just shame ourselves into fixing the climate. Broad regulation is the only way this will get solved. It can't be up to each individual person to save the climate.

If that's your solution, we're even more fucked than we currently are. Even if everybody stopped flying or eating ribeyes or whatever, there's still a huge amount of carbon that needs to be sucked out of the atmosphere, and plenty of extremely large sources of carbon and methane that are still there. The world is going to shit and you want me to eschew the tiny bit of enjoyment I have left in the hopes that everybody else does the same thing? Not gonna happen.

Re: Jeff Bezos Commits $10B to Address Climate Change

#220

Post by scarejunba »

keanzu wrote: post #202
scarejunba wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real value people like him provide is to make it so that normal people can outsource their sin (and the corresponding indulgences) to him. Someone's got to be buying the cheap plastic junk, my friend. You need a buyer for the middleman to profit.

He's our sin-eater. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin-eater

What an interesting practice. Thanks for sharing, man.
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