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Buy Me a Chair: The wacky world of university endowments

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Re: Buy Me a Chair: The wacky world of university endowments

#71

Post by hgsgm »

Scoundreller wrote: post #31
ghaff wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaving aside the exact numbers, there are also ways in that appreciated assets can be donated, the gains are basically tax shielded, and an annuity based on an actuarial determined portion of the assets can be paid out. The details are more complicated than that of course.

Yeah, in Canada there are relatively huge tax benefits from donating appreciated assets: both foregoing the capital gains on the appreciation and getting a tax credit for the market value. And on a big donation that the charity inevitably sells, the other shareholders pay the price when they get dumped on the market (but you still get the pre-sale valuation). Aaaaand if you arrange to get family naming rights to the…

It's very similar in US.

Re: Buy Me a Chair: The wacky world of university endowments

#72

Post by hgsgm »

fsckboy wrote: post #6
audibahnbacks wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“His tax bracket is say 50%” Even for HN this level of delusion is rare.

Sorry, dude, but am an UHNW individual, my income comes from investments, and year in year out I pay about 50% in tax (don't forget state and city income tax, and alternative minimum wipes out long term capital gain favoritism)

All that money and here is where you waste your most precious resource, time?

Re: Buy Me a Chair: The wacky world of university endowments

#73

Post by hgsgm »

fallingknife wrote: post #46
quickthrower2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely the most wealthy are not paying 50% income tax on their annual increase in net wealth (see what I did there)? When there are so many ways to avoid it.

Why would they pay a tax on that? You don't.

They can convert it to income via loans, tax-free.

Re: Buy Me a Chair: The wacky world of university endowments

#74

Post by hgsgm »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #39
TheAtomic wrote: post #3

I went to a graduation a few years ago at Carnegie Mellon. Some hedge fund guy was making his biggest donation yet and gave the commencement speech. It was endlessly about him and the new building to be named after him and how he was about to own an NFL football team. There was a Nobel Prize winner seated next to him on stage. I don't think she got to say anything, but was recognized for her work in cancer research.…

I've been dreaming about georgetown/nyu/nw for a tax LLM but the cost of admission is too darn high. Looks to me unless I already have that kind of money, there is no way I can get admission there. Oh well. That's capitalism for you I guess

So go somewhere else?

Re: Buy Me a Chair: The wacky world of university endowments

#75

Post by taskforcegemini »

jimnotgym wrote: post #55

> as when someone donates large sums to endow professorships in niche topics Linking to > When Strings Are Attached, Quirky Gifts Can Limit Universities Going on to say that Princeton is being forced to run lots of greek courses due to dead guy paying for it. Well...duh...of course. Wasn't that the point of the donation? The donor obviously wanted to imagine Greek studies going on forever. I presume after some period…

but either can be good or bad, so choosing one over the other isn't better by default

Re: Buy Me a Chair: The wacky world of university endowments

#76

Post by smcin »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #11
AlbertCory wrote: post #9

I told the university CS department that I wanted to endow a chair there. Not a professorship -- an actual chair, that you can sit in. They'd heard that joke before, unfortunately. I think they're missing a financial opportunity here :)

Perhaps they could have persuaded if you'd pointed out that support for the fundaments of researchers is just as sorely needed as support for research of fundamentals, dohohoho.

Is that the race to the bottom?

Re: Buy Me a Chair: The wacky world of university endowments

#77

Post by Epa095 »

kaashif wrote: post #69
Epa095 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>as the 1% pay the majority of all taxes. I am sorry for jumping in the middle of the discussion (which you seemed to want to quit :-P) but this statement seems to weird to not check out. After looking into it a bit it SEEMS like it's only true under a very certain reading: - "The 1%" must refer to the 1% with the highest income, and not the 1% richest, since the actual super rich don't really (often) have registerd…

You seem to use wage receiver and wage slave interchangeably. The top 1% of wage receivers include people in literally millions of dollars per year who cannot reasonably be described as wage slaves.

True, most of them have probably accumulated so much wealth that they work because they want to, and can quit at any time.

They still don't contribute the majority of the taxes though;-)

Re: Buy Me a Chair: The wacky world of university endowments

#78

Post by fallingknife »

hgsgm wrote: post #73
fallingknife wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would they pay a tax on that? You don't.

They can convert it to income via loans, tax-free.

Loans aren't income. When you get a mortgage is that income?

Also anyone with a brokerage account can get one of those loans. It's not remotely exclusive to rich people.

Re: Buy Me a Chair: The wacky world of university endowments

#79

Post by TrinaryWorksToo »

hgsgm wrote: post #70
jimnotgym wrote: post #55

> as when someone donates large sums to endow professorships in niche topics Linking to > When Strings Are Attached, Quirky Gifts Can Limit Universities Going on to say that Princeton is being forced to run lots of greek courses due to dead guy paying for it. Well...duh...of course. Wasn't that the point of the donation? The donor obviously wanted to imagine Greek studies going on forever. I presume after some period…

But also, If you tax the money the government will spend it on their own whims. If you let the rich guy keep it they can spend it on the public good.

At least we have some control via elections and petitioning the government

Re: Buy Me a Chair: The wacky world of university endowments

#80

Post by kandel »

beefield wrote: post #50
fsckboy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

to be fair, if she had finished the job and cured cancer, she could buy a Premier League team* (*cuz academics == soccer) There is a natural tendency to diminish money as a measure of anything good, but money really is the yardstick by which we jointly measure all things, trading off time with kids, family, travel, leisure against other priorities, and being rewarded by the rest of society for our contributions to wh…

> we do that because everybody loves a philanthropist giving. Count me out. I have a really unpopular opinion that philanthropy is nothing more nothing less than entertainment for the giver. There is no difference between me buing a movie ticket or giving money to a charity. (Well, other than in the movie case I create jobs, in the charity I foster helplessness) If society thinks there are some things where money sho…

For sure there is a value for the giver. It's good for you to be charitable, so why not win-win?
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