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How the Rich Reap Huge Tax Breaks From Private Nonprofits

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Re: How the Rich Reap Huge Tax Breaks From Private Nonprofits

#131

Post by dpflan »

Wealth is transfer from one part of the economic system to another, and extreme wealth is basically hoarding; why is it so difficult to reach a point of diminishing returns of wealth and then give it back in some way that is more impactful than arbitrary philanthropy? One cannot simply say government is inefficient because it is pretty clear that this current system is inefficient in distributing wealth and raising the living standards and reducing the suffering of others (because it has specifically been degraded and played by the wealthy so that they retain as much wealth as possible). The game of wealth accruing that everyone is playing is simply based on an economic system right now that depends upon money, and is a closed system facilitated by the government. Where else does _money_ come from? There is no other source. (Crypto is a joke, because is basically now valued in terms of fiat, so let's not add that to this discussion. It is also a small part of the bigger economic system, which again is founded upon fiat.)

So, this game of an economy founded upon money, what's the point? We no longer act as groups gathering resources from the natural environment; we are now individual actors forced to gather an intermediate resources (money), a reality and an abstraction for resource transfer. I am genuinely curious how the economy can truly be used to reduce suffering of others and create more stable societies.

(please note these are armchair philosophy, economics, sociology points, which would benefit from research.)

Re: How the Rich Reap Huge Tax Breaks From Private Nonprofits

#132

Post by 00ff »

hliyan wrote: post #114

It has been my observation that it is not that only people of unscrupulous character become wealthy, but wealth tends to make you progressively more unscrupulous, i.e. not care about anything but yourself and your family unless you are legally compelled to do so. In my mind, I've come to call this relative wealth toxicity . We all know of power toxicity (power corrupts). I think wealth has a similar effect on human p…

I've observed the opposite. The wealthy people I know are philanthropic. Similarly the upper middle class is more altruistic than the lower middle class, and so on down the hierarchy of needs.

Re: How the Rich Reap Huge Tax Breaks From Private Nonprofits

#133

Post by thfuran »

brigadier132 wrote: post #111
JKCalhoun wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why take your property taxes to educate our nation's children when you don't even have children? Am I unfairly framing your argument? Society (that's us) want things for society and it turns out they cost money. We would love to pay for these things with razor-like efficiency but we live in an imperfect world. (The "waste" however still goes into someone's wallet and can be in turn spent at a local restaurant or on g…

> Why take your property taxes to educate our nation's children when you don't even have children? Am I unfairly framing your argument? I don't have property. The whole thing that set this entire discussion off was the parent poster that stated everyone that implied the government was wasteful was a paid shill by billionaires. > The only real issue I see is how we balance the tax burden in a fair and equitable way th…

>The whole thing that set this entire discussion off was the parent poster that stated everyone that implied the government was wasteful was a paid shill by billionaires.

No, it wasn't.

Re: How the Rich Reap Huge Tax Breaks From Private Nonprofits

#134

Post by 00ff »

jmyeet wrote: post #24

Private foundations are really a massive scam on the public purse so whenever you hear about the Gates Foundation and the like, remember it's just a tax dodge, nothing more. The way the rules work, a private foundation has to spend 5% of its capital on its intended purpose. Thing is, that 5% can include "administration" costs like paying salaries and benefits for the family. They really need to raise this to 10%, min…

The Gates foundation likely gets more altruistic bang for its buck than any government on the planet, and plausibly more than any other organization of any sort.

Re: How the Rich Reap Huge Tax Breaks From Private Nonprofits

#135

Post by gruez »

avidiax wrote: post #84
zo1 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone explain how that charity foundation thing is a loophole? Who/what is avoiding taxes?

What do you want to do as a rich person? * Own and enjoy fantastic properties: - You own so many properties that you'll spend maybe a few weeks per year in each one - So donate these properties to your own charitable foundation, give tours while you aren't there. * Have lavish parties - Call it a charity ball, hold an auction at some point, now you look great and the canapés are tax-free. * Fly private - Book a meeti…

>- Give them sweet jobs in your foundation. Pay them competitive salaries without going through a competitive candidate search. Continue this even after you die, essentially a tax-free annuity.

It's not "tax free" when those salaries are taxed just like any other salary.

Re: How the Rich Reap Huge Tax Breaks From Private Nonprofits

#136

Post by macintux »

AlgorithmicTime wrote: post #26
dools wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bigger problem is a fear of public spending because of perceived incompetence. The stigma comes from a time when only governments had run big bureaucratic systems. Now we can see there is little difference between public and private bureaucracies except for a lack of oversight on the latter. Still the stigma remains and all public spending is filtered through a profit making entity.

Well, fix government oversight of public bureaucracies and then we can have a discussion. As it is now, it's pretty clear that elected officials have little control and oversight into the bureaucracies that they nominally control and direct. Make bureaucrats firable. End Chevron deference. Bring back political appointments from the top to the bottom of the bureaucracy.

> Bring back political appointments from the top to the bottom of the bureaucracy.

Good heavens no.

Turn over the bureaucracy every few years, bringing in political sycophants to replace people who actually understand the system (and, by and large, follow the law instead of kowtowing to the current demagogue-in-charge)?

Re: How the Rich Reap Huge Tax Breaks From Private Nonprofits

#137

Post by karpierz »

00ff wrote: post #129
throwawayqqq11 wrote: post #2

As a side note: One of the primary reasons of how the rich get richer and how public services (our society) degrade is, that we stopped taxing them. For decades now. Imho, its a shift of the represented interests in policies. We should stop pondering enshitification or greedflation an start seeing it as a systemic issue, that we can observe everywhere. https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Commodification#In_Marxist_th...

False, we never stopped taxing the rich. We reduced top marginal income tax rates though, so they moved more money into income and stopped hiding as much in shell companies and inventory. The top 1% earn 20% of national income, but their taxes comprise 40% of federal income tax revenue. US Gini coefficient (inequality measure) decreases by a third after accounting for taxes and transfers.

You start by saying that wealthy people can pretty freely manipulate the amount of income they show for tax purposes.

The follow-up is that based on the manipulated income data, wealthy people pay disproportionately more taxes?

Re: How the Rich Reap Huge Tax Breaks From Private Nonprofits

#138

Post by brigadier132 »

thfuran wrote: post #133
brigadier132 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why take your property taxes to educate our nation's children when you don't even have children? Am I unfairly framing your argument? I don't have property. The whole thing that set this entire discussion off was the parent poster that stated everyone that implied the government was wasteful was a paid shill by billionaires. > The only real issue I see is how we balance the tax burden in a fair and equitable way th…

>The whole thing that set this entire discussion off was the parent poster that stated everyone that implied the government was wasteful was a paid shill by billionaires. No, it wasn't.

Someone made that claim and the original poster seems to believe that "government waste" is a myth.

Re: How the Rich Reap Huge Tax Breaks From Private Nonprofits

#139

Post by Swenrekcah »

00ff wrote: post #129
throwawayqqq11 wrote: post #2

As a side note: One of the primary reasons of how the rich get richer and how public services (our society) degrade is, that we stopped taxing them. For decades now. Imho, its a shift of the represented interests in policies. We should stop pondering enshitification or greedflation an start seeing it as a systemic issue, that we can observe everywhere. https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Commodification#In_Marxist_th...

False, we never stopped taxing the rich. We reduced top marginal income tax rates though, so they moved more money into income and stopped hiding as much in shell companies and inventory. The top 1% earn 20% of national income, but their taxes comprise 40% of federal income tax revenue. US Gini coefficient (inequality measure) decreases by a third after accounting for taxes and transfers.

Assets should be taxed progressively.

Capitalism results in the power coming from capital. Therefore capital taxes should be the primary taxation mechanism.

There are issues with it such as cashflow problems and more, but all systems have issues and they can be overcome.

Re: How the Rich Reap Huge Tax Breaks From Private Nonprofits

#140

Post by dtgriscom »

jmyeet wrote: post #24

Private foundations are really a massive scam on the public purse so whenever you hear about the Gates Foundation and the like, remember it's just a tax dodge, nothing more. The way the rules work, a private foundation has to spend 5% of its capital on its intended purpose. Thing is, that 5% can include "administration" costs like paying salaries and benefits for the family. They really need to raise this to 10%, min…

Characterizing the Gates Foundation as "just a tax dodge" is a pretty hot take.
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