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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

#191

Post by knorker »

bradenb wrote: post #185
yellowstuff wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have just enough information about foundations to completely misunderstand them. It's true that a major reason for the popularity of foundations is legal tax avoidance: you can donate to a foundation in a year when you have lots of income, get the tax benefit in that year, and not have to make a charitable donation in the same year. The foundations is allowed to sit on most of the money for a long time. However,…

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.

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

#192

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

brookst wrote: post #51
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the tax break work? Don't you still have to pay income and/or capital gains tax on everything that goes into the fund minus a pretty small amount?

Let’s say I make $100 at an effective income tax rate of 35%. I pay $35 in taxes and keep $65. Now say I make the same $100 but I give $20 to a qualifying nonprofit. I have $80 left, on which I pay 35% ($28), leaving me with $52. I have $13 less than I would have without the contribution. But if I own the nonprofit, funds under my control go from $65 to $72.

I thought there's a limit to how much you can deduct from qualifying nonprofit donations, no?

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

#194

Post by jonfw »

solumunus wrote: post #156
binarymax wrote: post #6

A tax avoidance scheme which also placated a twitter argument about his contributions. Unsurprising.

How on earth is this a tax avoidance scheme? Complete nonsense. Sure, he doesn't pay tax on that money, he also loses that money. This is not a net gain for Musk personally. He can't directly send money from the charity to himself, to him personally the money is more or less gone. This is less greedy then simply paying tax on the money and spending it.

If I gave you complete control over a billion dollars in a "charity", don't you think (if you were so inclined) you would be able to find plenty of ways to spend that money in a way that would benefit you?

I.E.- I might buy a house, and then have my charity buy a huge amount of land around it as an investment, to effectively turn my 1 acre homesite into a 100 acre estate

Maybe I'd have my charity teach at-risk children to ride horses, so I could build some nice pastures and have horses in my front yard.

Of course- the professional landscapers who my charity hires to maintain the grounds would probably cut me a pretty good deal on doing my personal estate as well, while they're out there

And maybe my executive assistant who runs my horse charity would pick up my dry cleaning now and again

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

#195

Post by andrepd »

memish wrote: post #172
SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a comment that was without irony posting how Musk is the new Trump. And I think there is so much truth to that it’s painful, but not in the way some people may think.

Only insofar that they are anti-establishment and the media uses them for ragebait, and they troll the media. Trump is a rent seeker celebrity. Elon is one of the most productive humans. They are radically different but both break people's brains because they are supposed to be pro-establishment refined elites. Instead they are uncouth and align more with the working poors and dissidents. That's the biggest sin and i…

>Elon is the most productive human

I need to take a break from this website.

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

#196

Post by mrguyorama »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #177
Retric wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“However, crucially, when the money leaves the foundation it must go to an approved charity.” They can spend money on expenses and those expenses can benefit you. Having family members work for and be generously paid by such an orientation is a common example. Anytime you control a cash flow you can benefit from that cash flow.

> Anytime you control a cash flow you can benefit from that cash flow. Interesting point. One wonders if, hypothetically, I had $1B to donate to a charity, what those charities might offer up (under the table?) to be a recipient of that money. I know, crazy conspiracy thinking.

Usually that's enough to get your name on a wing of a hospital or twenty

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

#198

Post by culi »

hindsightbias wrote: post #165
bane wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, I first learned about this when being forced to watch some of the "Housewives of ..." shows by my wife. I couldn't figure out why all these objectively terrible people all had their own personal charities (many of the episodes revolve around the social group of the show going to each other's charity events). It turns out it's a common, but legal, "scam". Take in funds from fundraisers, give away a little, then…

You'll see a lot of giant yachts that are in "research" foundations. They get tax breaks for supporting "research" and have a few jaunts with scientist in popular vacation areas.

Right. I mean 501c3's rules around politics are notoriously lax. You basically just can't donate to a candidate of a party. But there's plenty of 501c3's that simply don't explicitly represent a certain party go to pains to reach out to areas that are very reliably a certain party.

A lot of these "charities" being donated to out of DAFs are for political influence like this. They can push for laws and regulations that will benefit, in this case, Tesla or Twitter or whatever, and Musk now can play politics without having to pay taxes on that money

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

#199

Post by kgwxd »

IncRnd wrote: post #71
kgwxd wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minus the press release.

Here is Bill Gate's Press Release for 2022. "With the support and guidance of our board, we plan to increase our spending from nearly $6 billion per year today to $9 billion per year by 2026. To help make this spending increase possible, I am transferring $20 billion to the foundation’s endowment this month." Jul 13, 2022 [1] [1] https://twitter.com/BillGates/status/1547235386560155648

Yes, OP link was a press release by Gates too. I meant Musk didn't do a press release.

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

#200

Post by synergy20 »

c22 wrote: post #8

If I had money to donate I'd donate it to the charity I thought would be most effective at helping the cause I cared most about. If I had enough money to create my own charity it would be focused on the cause I cared most about. My giant ego and hubris would make it hard for me to come to the conclusion that a charity I created wasn't the most effective at its goals, even if that didn't happen to be the case.

isn't Bill Gates, Zuck, Bezos are all doing similar things.

If I had that money, I will certainly donate to my own charity or some charity I firmly trust.

The only exception is Buffet, who donated lots of his money to Bill Gates' charity, Buffet seems has no interests to manage that on his own.

It's your money, make your call.

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