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Musk’s $5.7B Mystery Gift Went to His Own Charity

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Re: Musk’s $5.7B Mystery Gift Went to His Own Charity

#271

Post by Volundr »

missedthecue wrote: post #151
brookst wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. Plenty of rich peoples’ charities are incredibly inefficient at their stated purpose, good for their owners, and legal. Consider an imaginary tobacco tycoon’s charity that promotes cigarette use. It would be 100% legal.

Legal, but it would not qualify for 501c3 tax exempt status.

Honest question, what would make it illegal? Charities pushing for social change is 100% a thing and I don't think it's limited to such a vague concept as "positive" social change.

Re: Musk’s $5.7B Mystery Gift Went to His Own Charity

#272

Post by pwinnski »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #236
Someone1234 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Billionaire's 501(c)(3)s aren't charities in the typical sense. They're tax-exempt piles of money that are controlled exclusively by billionaire and their families (in this case Musk and his brother). The Musk Foundation in particular has donated less than 1% of the "charities" assets (most donations less than $500K, most years less than $1M) and these "charities" can pay out to their owners from tax-exempt gains on…

>these "charities" can pay out to their owners from tax-exempt gains on the back-end. Even if this were true, that back-end would be taxable, so who cares? That said, why would this make sense from the donor perspective? Why would I want to donate $1M to a charity to avoid taxes, just so that it can pay me $1M which I would then have to pay taxes on again?

Because the charity can expense things you can use without anyone paying taxes on anything.

Charity holds a conference at a resort, that's an operating expense. Present are the officers of the company, which is you and your friends and family. All expenses for the charity, paid from the million, and therefore untaxed.

Re: Musk’s $5.7B Mystery Gift Went to His Own Charity

#273

Post by c22 »

aisengard wrote: post #109
maerF0x0 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mere mortals are often paying 0 tax on their investments(ie deferred). Same as the ultra wealthy do. The issue is being a W2 wage slave, err i mean employee

Actually, mere mortals pay tax eventually when they cash out their investments to pay for the things they want. The wealthy get to take low-interest loans against their investments to pay for the things that they want, without ever having to cash out. They never have to pay those taxes, and their inheritors don't either due to the truly insane cost basis step-up benefit you get when assets are transferred to next of…

No they don't. Mere mortals don't receive enough income from their tax-deferred investments (lol), social security, and elderly side-hustle (part time cashier at Ross?) to incur a tax liability. Even taking full advantage of the senior discount at Denny's they won't leave behind much to their kin.

Re: Musk’s $5.7B Mystery Gift Went to His Own Charity

#275

Post by s1artibartfast »

knorker wrote: post #191
bradenb wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To that parent's point, < 1% has gone to charities which means the foundation is just spending money on the people that work in and own the foundation. I wouldn't need to get paid directly if I had a foundation that paid for everything I need or want.

If you have $1B you can already pay for everything you need or want. Donating it to your own non-profit, only to pay for your own expenses, is an extremely expensive way to "launder" that $1B into a tax deduction.

Yeah, it is really unclear to me how some people think charity donation makes sense just to get back some Fringe non-monetary benefits

Re: Musk’s $5.7B Mystery Gift Went to His Own Charity

#276

Post by richbell »

93po wrote: post #269
richbell wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's his preferred narrative. The truth is that Elon Musk has been subject to negative attention for years because of market manipulation[0], abhorrent labour practices and safety record[1], and obsession with inserting himself into the limelight via poor behaviour[2] or over-promising things he can't deliver[3][4] — to name a few reasons why he's viewed unfavorably. [0] https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-…

Where's the equal or louder negative attention for billionaires who profit off death and destruction? That use actual slave labor for their projects that result in tens of thousands of deaths? That wreck the environment without consequence? That promote harm and violence to disadvantaged groups? That exploit child labor? The issue is clearly not that Musk says dumb shit on Twitter and missed a deadline for his pickup…

> Where's the equal or louder negative attention for billionaires who profit off death and destruction? That use actual slave labor for their projects that result in tens of thousands of deaths? That wreck the environment without consequence? That promote harm and violence to disadvantaged groups? That exploit child labor?

The sad reality is that these egregious human rights violations often fly under the radar because their perpetrators know how to keep their mouths shut. Elon is constantly in the limelight because he intentionally inserts himself there and is openly flaunting his wealth and disrespect for others. It's no surprise that a high-profile person constantly acting belligerent, lying, and antagonizing people receives so much attention from the media.

It's the same reason why Martin Shkreli went to jail and not any of the pharmaceutical executives who've ruined or ended millions of lives.

> The issue is clearly not that Musk says dumb shit on Twitter and missed a deadline for his pickup truck.

This is an inaccurate and dishonest summary of what I linked in my comment.

> The issue is that society has a rage boner against him and people like you are perpetuating it while missing the wealth inequality forest for the Elon trees.

You are creating a false dichotomy to simp for a billionaire who treats his employees and other people around him as disposable means to an end. The sins of other people does not make it okay for Elon to sexually harrasses and abuses his employees, report a fake shooting threat to spite someone for whistleblowing[0], abuse and kill countless animals in rushed and botched testing... I could go on.

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon...

Re: Musk’s $5.7B Mystery Gift Went to His Own Charity

#277

Post by notahacker »

culi wrote: post #203
notahacker wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tbh it's even more of a non-story than that, because his "own charity" is a donor advised foundation that openly dispenses money to a wide range of completely independent charities and charitable causes he and his brother pick (many of them quite well known and well regarded), not some secretive organization with some obscure purpose that might just be an arm of one of his corporations or a place to hide wealth from…

> completely independent charities and charitable causes he and his brother pick The money can go to any 501c3 they pick. So if there's a 501c3 that's pushing for regulation that will benefit Tesla or SpaceX or some "raising awareness" campaign that's a glorified marketing campaign or some org that influences research, etc... those are all easy pickings

Sure, but it can't go on megayachts or personal world domination initiatives, and Elon (or anyone else) could make tax deductible donations to those registered charities without a foundation in place.

Since the foundation publishes accounts, it's actually relatively transparent what he has and the eclectic selection of causes Elon donated to has been fairly widely reported on. It looks considerably more like a man chucking money at a lot of pretty standard causes than say, the obscure nonprofit "to promote interior design" that is the tax-free beneficial owner of Ikea...

Re: Musk’s $5.7B Mystery Gift Went to His Own Charity

#278

Post by boxed »

k099 wrote: post #229
jasonlfunk wrote: post #96

Instead of giving directly to charities like St. Judes - he funds his foundation which gives to charities like St. Judes. When you give away $5B, wouldn't it be irresponsible to not give it to a foundation? And if you have your own foundation, wouldn't it be dumb to not give it to your own foundation? This seems like a nothing story; except that it's in vogue to hate Musk right now.

While I agree that this is ordinary for very rich people, it's good reporting and context for us to know where and how the 2nd richest man in the world takes a tax deduction that we publicly fund.

..to St. Jude? With one intermediary? I don't see the big deal...

Re: Musk’s $5.7B Mystery Gift Went to His Own Charity

#279

Post by s1artibartfast »

pwinnski wrote: post #272
s1artibartfast wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>these "charities" can pay out to their owners from tax-exempt gains on the back-end. Even if this were true, that back-end would be taxable, so who cares? That said, why would this make sense from the donor perspective? Why would I want to donate $1M to a charity to avoid taxes, just so that it can pay me $1M which I would then have to pay taxes on again?

Because the charity can expense things you can use without anyone paying taxes on anything. Charity holds a conference at a resort, that's an operating expense. Present are the officers of the company, which is you and your friends and family. All expenses for the charity, paid from the million, and therefore untaxed.

Still seems like a pretty crappy deal to me and negative expected value. More so if you have your own Corporation that can do all those things. I feel like there is a n Physical limit on the number of tax deductible meals and vacations someone and their family can consume

Re: Musk’s $5.7B Mystery Gift Went to His Own Charity

#280

Post by c22 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #265
c22 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're also not meant to hold billions of dollars (the annual contribution limit is like $6000). Yet somehow this happens [0]. [0]: http://www.propublica.org/article/lord-of-the-roths-how-tech...

yeah, I'm aware of that. They are designed with no cap, but clearly this type of growth was not expected. Seems like it is an easy fix if it is determined to be a problem worth fixing. Just add a IRA cap at something like 50 million before you have to withdraw.

Or convert Roths back into regular IRAs after a point. I agree it's fixable and I think it ought to be fixed. I'm not so concerned about tax shenanigans that produce beneficial charity as a byproduct.
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