Gates Makes Largest Donation Since 2000 With $4.6 Billion Pledge (bloomberg.com) 163
From a report: Bill Gates made his largest gift since the turn of the century, giving away Microsoft shares that accounted for 5 percent of his fortune, the world's biggest. The billionaire donated 64 million of the software maker's shares valued at $4.6 billion on June 6, according to a Securities & Exchange Commission filing released Monday. While the recipient of the gift wasn't specified, Gates has made the majority of his donations to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the charity he and his wife use to direct their philanthropic efforts. It's the largest gift of Microsoft shares that Gates has made since 2000. The 61-year-old gave away $16 billion worth of Microsoft shares in 1999 and $5.1 billion a year later, according to calculations by Bloomberg.
$55k (Score:3)
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(2) You are asking Slashdot for foresight. If we knew what to do, it would be too late. Bill figured it out on his own.
(3) You live in Silicon Valley. One can live comfortably on $55k elsewhere.
(4) I don't know. All I have to go on is what you said.
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"The Richest Man in Babylon" [amzn.to] by George S. Clason is a good read.
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Increase thy ability to earn -- instead of spamming ad links for pennies, build your skills to make your work more valuable.
https://twitter.com/cdreimer/status/897516205216604160 [twitter.com]
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So, you've chosen option 1 - which gets you an extra $100 a week [...]
Keep in mind that I've shown in my "spreadsheet" is what I made on Slashdot. It doesn't include the two dozen other affiliate links that I have.
Give us more advice on how to get rich quick, creimer!
Get rich quick schemes don't work.
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But you've mastered the get poor slow scheme perfectly.
I don't come home, drop a six-pack next to the chair and watch TV all night.
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And what will you do when Amazon decides that paying out revenues is only truly useful to them when somebody drives people to a specific item?
Multiple revenue streams. Amazon is one of many.
What's the matter, afraid somebody will point out that it's an obvious fake?
I made the data available for one hour. You got a peek, now you can bitch about it.
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More like afraid it would get forwarded to the IRS.
Amazon will send me a 1099 at tax time.
That's not giving it away (Score:5, Insightful)
He still controls all of that money, but now he doesn't have to pay taxes on it.
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Mod this guy up!
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Why mod up? Why insightful? He might control it but he's not spending it on beer and hookers; it's not his money.
It would not be physically possible to spend $4.6 billion on beer and hookers.
Take hookers, each hired at $2500 a day for the remaining 20 years of his life. Do the math : that would be over 300 hookers available 24/7. He could not even get them all in the bedroom let alone do anything else. And that is not even touching the rest of his fortune. As an alternative, I leave it as an excercise to the reader to work out how much beer he would have to drink, but I guess it would float the Titanic and a fract
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It would not be physically possible to spend $4.6 billion on beer and hookers.
He doesn't have to personally consume all of the beer and hookers. He could be throwing a party.
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He didn't pay taxes on it before, either. When he dies, the funds stay with the Foundation instead of being part of his estate.
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You need to learn some economics. By donating the stock, he's gifted it pre-capital gains tax. Now, it's going to get cashed out by a tax exempt organization that can then spend it back on operating costs that likely go back to Bill via exempt or at least otherwise reduced taxes... likely in a country with little oversight on these things.
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Likely go back to Bill? What the hell. OK, Bill Gates is evil. Carry on.
Re:That's not giving it away (Score:4, Informative)
I should say the same for you. He wasn't paying taxes before. The parent implies that he needs to pay taxes on it now. He does not - it is paper wealth, and we have no wealth tax. When he dies, his estate would have to pay taxes unless the assets were first donated to a charity. When he dies, he has control over nothing - the trustees of the charity will. He can make his wishes known, and that's it.
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Re:That's not giving it away (Score:5, Informative)
The point that SANE people are getting is there AREN'T any benefits like you suppose.
Let's say you have $1B in unrealized gains. Your tax liability on that is exactly $0.
Supposed you realize the gains, and DO NOT donate. You pay $150M tax, and keep $850M for yourself. However, if you donate the shares, you pay $0 taxes and keep $0 for yourself. Where, exactly, is this supposed 'benefit'? It may be bad financially for the government (aww) if you donate, but it is worse financially for you if you DO donate.
The 'he controls the wealth' is nonsense. The foundation controls the wealth, and their are strict laws on what can and can not be done with the money. Chief among the 'can nots' is that the money can not benefit HIM.
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There are a lot of poor, hungry, and disadvantaged people in our own country and you don't need to look beyond our borders to find them.
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You know that the Gates foundation also does a lot of work in the US right? And it buys things from taxpaying US companies, funds research in the US through grants, and directly employs US taxpayers. The US sees direct benefits from his foundation.
Further, he is absolutely free to direct his foundations priorities [gatesfoundation.org] in the areas where he wants to make an impact, so long as the foundation keeps meeting the IRS definition of a charitable non-profit. It's all charitable work so it's tax exempt the same as every
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he is absolutely free to direct his foundations ... in the areas where he wants to make an impact
How about he first refunds to his victims the money he made by abuse of monopoly and shady business practices? For example Gates has had some of my money in that I've had to buy PCs pre-loaded with Windows even though I did not want it and never used it. If he were the saint we are supposed to believe, he should commission a independent financial review to calculate what he should give back to his "customers". Then do what he likes with the rest.
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The 'he controls the wealth' is nonsense. The foundation controls the wealth, and their are strict laws on what can and can not be done with the money. Chief among the 'can nots' is that the money can not benefit HIM.
While I do generally like how Bill Gates has been spending his billions, just because he cannot buy a yacht with the money doesn't mean it doesn't benefit him. Bill Gates still has all the money he will ever need to buy anything he will ever want. Just about the only thing left is the ability to do the type of social engineering usually reserved for governments.
Bill Gates donates to his charity so he has control over 100% of those social engineering efforts, instead of only around 80% of it. If he paid taxe
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Millions of non-billionaires donate to all sorts of charities. In 2016 it amounted to almost $400B. In every one of those cases they get a tax deduction. Are all of those people doing something wrong? Are all of those people not 'paying their full tax burden'?
The simple fact is 'your full tax burden' is defined by one thing: the law. If you are not breaking the law, then you ARE 'paying your full tax burden'.
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Millions of non-billionaires donate to all sorts of charities. In 2016 it amounted to almost $400B. In every one of those cases they get a tax deduction. Are all of those people doing something wrong? Are all of those people not 'paying their full tax burden'?
The simple fact is 'your full tax burden' is defined by one thing: the law. If you are not breaking the law, then you ARE 'paying your full tax burden'.
My assumption is that in most of those cases they are not donating to charities they operate, so none of the concerns I mentioned are applicable.
And tax burden is not an official term in the IRS code, so the law has little to do with it. The law represents what those currently in power want each person's tax burden to be. Those who complain about billionaires donating to their own charities obviously take issue with these laws. Without taking sides, it shouldn't be hard to at least understand this argument.
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Millions of non-billionaires donate to all sorts of charities. In 2016 it amounted to almost $400B. In every one of those cases they get a tax deduction. Are all of those people doing something wrong? Are all of those people not 'paying their full tax burden'?
Those people are probably making those donations by giving cash (check/credit card). They have (presumably) already paid tax on that money when they received it as a paycheck, and that is why they get the tax deduction. Bill Gates is giving stock that he owns, not cash from his bank account. When the foundation wants to use some of this money, they have to sell the stock on the open market, and then they can spend the proceeds of the stock sale. Gates has not paid any taxes on the stock that he is donat
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The 'he controls the wealth' is nonsense. The foundation controls the wealth, and their are strict laws on what can and can not be done with the money. Chief among the 'can nots' is that the money can not benefit HIM.
In addition, charitable organizations, especially high profile ones such as this, face an immense amount of scrutiny both public and private. In WA, any charity/tax exempt organization with annual gross revenues over $3,000,000 must perform a full audit of their financials by an appropriate accounting firm. Secondly, they must file an extensive tax return with the IRS, which is made public, detailing all sorts of information on the organization, including their sources of revenue, salaries and identities of
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If you're creative enough there are all sorts of way you can benefit from a charity. Why do you think pretty much every rich person has a personal foundation (Trump Foundation, Clinton Foundation, Gates Foundation, Buffet Foundation) that spends incredible amounts of money on "overhead" to the point they are barely giving any of it away.
Remember when the Gates Foundation was donating to schools - what did he donate - Microsoft hardware and software. So the foundation purchased Microsoft "stuff" and then 'do
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Try to think. The amount of tax that would be owed if the securities were not donated is between 0% (if there were no capital gains) and 15% (if the securities had a cost basis of $0) of the value of the securities.
So, in order for a donation to have a financial benefit, he would have to make back between 85% and 100% of the value of the donation JUST TO BREAK EVEN. It is idiotic to assume that is the case. And if he DID manage to make back ANY money, even below the 85% mark, it would be subject to ta
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It's a bit more complicated than that, obviously he would have to pay the 15% in taxes if he converts the securities in usable (liquid) funds. He would also continue having to pay income taxes on everything else he gains (35%). If you give away the securities to a charity, he pays 0%, he also gets to deduct the donation from his income taxes so he lowers his income taxes.
Now if he sets up the foundation in his name, he gives the money to the foundation, it benefits his company tremendously not just today bu
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I don't think it's a scam at all. We have tax law that lets you deduct charitable contributions because we value those contributions greater than we value the tax revenue. This isn't about anything shady. He "controls the wealth" insofar as he uses it for charitable causes, which is not really controlling the wealth.
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You don't know much about trusts if you believe he does not have absolute control over the money even in death.
Re: That's not giving it away (Score:2)
Yeah... Nobody is paying the inheritance tax. Nobody.
Well, if you're paying much of it, you were given poor advice. Avoiding taxes is perfectly legal. These same mechanisms are available to anyone, and aren't horribly expensive.
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"He" won't control anything. He'll be dead. But his trustees will control his money when dead. He can make his wishes known, but that won't last forever. The Barnes Museum in Philly jumps to mind.
Re:That's not giving it away (Score:5, Informative)
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What is the problem with that? If you have $10B, you could give away $1B/year for 10 years. That is good. Or, you could put that $10B in a tax-advantaged trust that yields 10%, and just give away the proceeds. That way, you can give away $1B/year forever. That is better. I fail to see the problem.
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How the heck can one reliably yield 10%?
Re:That's not giving it away (Score:5, Insightful)
You think he's going to buy a yacht with it?
You think he's gonna buy hookers with it?
Why are you people so bent out of shape?
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I think he's going to promote excessively strong IP law in developing nations with it, to a degree that will basically result in them being wholly owned by corporate interests when the first major health crisis comes along that requires patented medication.
Re:That's not giving it away (Score:5, Insightful)
He still controls all of that money, but now he doesn't have to pay taxes on it.
He didn't pay any taxes on it before. You don't pay taxes on unrealized gains. Now, he's made it so that he'll never realize any gains on that stock, and so that he can't spend it on himself, but only on charitable efforts. By any reasonable definition of the word, that is "giving it away". The most you can argue is that until the Gates Foundation (assuming that's where it went) spends it on fighting malaria or whatnot, it hasn't actually been given away yet. But he's moved it to where it can only be given away, so that's a distinction without a difference.
Not that he doesn't still have more money than he could ever possibly spend on himself anyway. This gift will have no impact on his personal life.
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It's reliant on instruments that have variable value and are inherently risky. This completely ignores the time value of money because accolades are awarded on nominal values rather the actual distributions that come out of a trust or fund. Tell me the *total* amount distributed and how that has impacted the world and you might get some applause from me.
Re: That's not giving it away (Score:2)
You know that's public information, right? There are even links in this thread.
I don't think he much cares about your opinion, or applause, however. Still, you can easily get this information. They get a complete audit, every year. You don't even have to pay to see the results, they'll give them to you.
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do you know where you are?
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What a bitter and twisted person you are making comments towards someone who's doing so much good in the world.
He is "doing good" with money got by shady business practices. A little bit of it is mine (Microsoft Windows tax on new PCs) which should not have gone to him because I don't use Windows. He is like a bank robber who drops some loose change in the charity box by the door as he leaves. But I'd prefer to choose my own charities to donate to, not Gates' charities.
Tax dodge (Score:2)
W Buffett used similar option to cancel huge swaths of his tax liabilities in a triple-dip dodge. He donated billions to charities he controls, sure, but he donated appreciated shares of stock. So first he deducted the charitable donation, at the same time bypassing capital gains taxes, and he significantly reduced his potential estate taxes. And he created $10B in carryover deductions for future years.
Imagine if he had simply sold his shares, paid income and CG taxes, then didn't deduct the gifts on his ta
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What you are complaining about is that he didn't pay taxes on money he never had and never will have. Do you pay taxes on money you never had?
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No, I'm complaining about WB complaining about his taxes not being high enough, then jumping through hoops to to avoid taxes.
Since he has expressed the opinion that his taxes are too low and that government needs more money, WB could have sold the shares directly, paid CG taxes on the appreciated value, paid the 3.8% Medicare surcharge tax from Obamacare on top of that, then given the remaining cash to a charity he (one that doesn't control would make the optics better) and then not taken a deduction for th
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When WB says his taxes are not high enough, he doesn't just mean himself personally, he means a segment of the population.
Presumably, WB has certain areas that he thinks are underfunded by taxes. And, presumably, he thinks that if there was more tax revenue then those areas could be properly funded.
But, the reality is that the tax revenue is currently not high enough to fund those areas, and if he DID voluntarily pay more taxes very little of that money, if any, would go to the areas he is concerned about.
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Wow, are you biased. If he had donated shares of stock that hadn't appreciated, or shares that had gone to zero, the financial effects to him would have been no different.
What the donation of appreciated stock to charity gains him is power and reputation. The reputation of being a very good guy, to people who think that donation to charity is a virtue. Power, by controlling the actions of charities to which he has given stock.
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If you count winding up with less money than you would have had if you paid the taxes as a 'tax break', then yes.
What's with the scare quotes around 'donating'? Do you have some evidence that he did not donate, or that the foundation does not meet the criteria of a charitable non-profit?
Re: That's not giving it away (Score:2)
If only they had itemized lists of where the money was spent, that'd make it easier. If only...
Oh, wait! They do!
"Recipient of the gift wasn't specified" (Score:2)
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Followed by a donation of 4.6 billion dollars' worth of Surface Pro 4s to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Sigh. (Score:2)
Is this news? He's "pledged" to give away 50% of his wealth (any timescale, I'm not sure?), this is about 5%.
Who'd have thought it would be so hard to give away money and just live on the billions you have left? Just ask Monty Brewster, I suppose.
But then, supposedly he gets a tax break, so is that defined as something that Monty's lawyers would class as an asset or profit?
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64 million shares? (Score:5, Funny)
That should be enough for anybody.
Psychological stimulation (Score:3)
When you have that much money, you can randomly do weird things with it, with no risk, to get attention focused on you or to see what comes out of peoples' mouths... sort of a litmus test, if you will. I can't imagine what it would be like to have that much money and get bored enough to fuck with it just to stir the proverbial pot.
I digress.
Not Impressed (Score:2)
Self-donation shell game. (Score:2)
There's no donation, just a move-around.
ITT ignorance (Score:3)
I fully expect the comment area in this post to be filled with comments from people who never even heard all the stuff the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation did over the years.
Because of course there is a predominant bias against Microsoft that will certainly contaminate and overlook all the work that the foundation has done.
Quick read here before you post your creed against it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
If you'd rather have Gates keep his money and let it go to his own family so that we have another bunch of Trumps running around, I hope you rot in hell.
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You should check on Gate's philanthropy background. Think what you may about him, he donated a shitload of money to very good causes over the world.
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Yes, I know that he has done some great things, such as exterminating polio. But he does have an Achilles-heel when it comes to coding.
Reducing the footprint of malaria across Africa is a great endeavor sure to help the world, sending some special group to summer camp where they can be told what to appreciate not so much.
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He also made massive donations to promoting genital mutilation (instead of fighting it).
He also prefers $1000 per dose meds bought from companies he cooperates with instead of $2 per dose of the same substance produced locally. Worse, receiving those $1000 meds usually comes with strings attached where they're contingent on passing laws that shut down production of generics in the name of "intellectual property".
B&M Gates Foundation is one of worst charities.
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Citations?
* male genital mutilation [newscientist.com]
* intellectual property laws: some vague stuff for example here [humanosphere.org]; there's so many hits for their relations to "intellectual property" that it's hard to tell the whaff away. I can't search tonight, lemme find better citations later.
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Citations?
* male genital mutilation [newscientist.com]
Okay, on that one you're being ridiculous.Circumcision is a debatable practice (though I'm circumcised, as are most American men, and I don't consider myself "mutilated"), but in this case it's being done for a very positive reason, which is that it's known to reduce the transmission of AIDS. The Gates Foundation provided support to a UN organization focused specifically on saving lives. That's making the world better, even if it does (theoretically) reduce a little sexual pleasure.
* intellectual property laws: some vague stuff for example here [humanosphere.org]; there's so many hits for their relations to "intellectual property" that it's hard to tell the whaff away. I can't search tonight, lemme find better citations later.
Agreed, that's a poor cit
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in this case it's being done for a very positive reason, which is that it's known to reduce the transmission of AIDS
Nope, the preponderance of evidence say the transmission of AIDS is either unaffected or enhanced by circumcision.
Almost any claims that circumcision protects from AIDS quote the infamous Camp Orange/Orange Farms study. That study consists of an egregious list of scientific misconduct. For example, the circumcised group had received sexual education while the control group did not -- so it's not surprising that men who had a downtime and were taught safe(r) practices will have less AIDS. The researchers'
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Or, another approach: as such studies are done on a limited sample that often suffers from some sort of selection bias, let's instead compare whole countries. Here are the figures for %HIV prevalence in the entire population, and ratios of prevalence in circumcized to uncircumcized men:
(Sorry for the broken table, Slashdot considers any non-trivial <pre> to be "junk".)
country %HIV c/i =i/c
Kenya 6.7% 0.24 (1/4.20)
Burkina Faso 1.8% 0.62 (1/1.61)
Uganda 6.45 0.68 (1/1.47)
Ivory Coast
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in this case it's being done for a very positive reason, which is that it's known to reduce the transmission of AIDS
Nope, the preponderance of evidence say the transmission of AIDS is either unaffected or enhanced by circumcision.
The UN health organization disagrees with you.
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The UN health organization disagrees with you.
Your FCC claims that Net Neutrality kills innovation on the Internet. Our Ministry of Education's curriculum board says sexual education must preach virginity until marriage, while even high schoolers (including those who are 18) should not be teached anything about actual intercourse, and that birth control is "contrary to moral norms".
All three are political organizations, not panels of impartial engineers/doctors.
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Spoke like a true alt-right suburbanite. How would you know how children in poor neighborhoods eat? Scumbag.
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You seem to have some anger-related issues. That's not good for your heart.
You make it very easy for me when you call me alt-right, since it takes a very particular kind of person to skip the thinking part and jump straight to calling others alt-right. Especially when the data on obesity and its correlation to low income (hint: crap food costs less than healthy food) has been so well documented for so many years. Even the simplest form of due diligence, a google search, reveals a results page filled with st
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Didn't like the thinking part, eh? Fair enough, it's not for everyone.
You still haven't addressed the scientific consensus pointing out the strong correlation between poor-neighborhood upbringing and obesity.
The only information you are trying to convey in your post is "plenty of doughy suburbanite kids eat hamburgers and coke." which, while formulated in a way I find charming and prosaic, doesn't hold. If you want to use suburban as a proxy for "not-poor-neighborhood upbringing", then the scientific consen
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You did know of that whole Michelle Obama Lunch rules thing, right?
We all know how kids on Free Lunch programs ate. Because Michelle never got tired of telling us.
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I'll eat what I please, thank you very much.
Meanwhile, you can stop lecturing people on shit you apparently know nothing about.
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Not from anybody named Obama, that's for sure.
Now, that is true. Lots of people, especially in the US, do not listen to good advice from anybody named Obama. Their loss, but they don't. But hey, Darwinism in action.
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Michelle's Lunch plan was an exercise in futility.
"Healthy" food pretty much tastes like ass unless you have talented people fixing it. That, you will not find in an inner city kitchen.
More food was being thrown away and people were dripping out (which is actually a good thing. so I guess that's a redeeming quality of her program)
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Spoke like a true alt-right suburbanite. How would you know how children in poor neighborhoods eat? Scumbag.
I can say with confidence from a family member who used to teach in Lancaster, a true ghetto, that McDonalds was the biggest beneficiary of Michelle Obamas push to make school lunch be healthy and unappealing. He found it amusing, but I guess he must have been an alt-right suburbanite scumbag for observing reality.
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Bill Gates stepped down as CEO in 2000, left the company in 2006, and hasn't been involved at all since 2014. You're blaming him for stuff he's got nothing to do with, and the versions of Windows that did happen under his watch, were quite popular. Except for Windows ME. No one liked Windows ME.
Damn Those Rich People! (Score:2)
That money should go to the Feds so it can be spend it the way it SHOULD be spent!! /S
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It may be debatable as to whether you should be able to donate to your own charitable fund, but the whole concept of these funds actually makes sense. There is a version of these funds that's actually available to "normal" people without their own organizations. They're called "Donor Advised Funds." (If you ever see a clueless article about some fancy person giving money to the "Silicon Valley Community Fund," that is one of these such funds.)
These funds give you a way to separate the act of "getting the
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Charitable donations do not provide a 'tax benefit'. Ever.
A tax benefit leaves you with more money than you would have without the benefit. A charitable donation leaves you with less money.
The only way a donation can be seen as a tax benefit is if you simply do not want to pay taxes, as opposed to keeping more of your money (which is what normal people consider a tax benefit).
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Why is it legal to donate to your own charity?
Because the rich make the rules and love a good tax dodge. The close cousin to this is donating to each others charities in similar amounts for tax free perks.
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Once it hits the Foundation, the activities are open for all to see. Anyone can pull up a copy of their IRS Form 990, which lists all the grants received by the foundation, given by the foundation, lists the various activities of the organization, lists the compensation for the key employees and officers/directors (plus their names), and so forth. It's all there, for anyone who cares to read through the 1124 pages to see. To look at it, go here: https://www.gatesfoundation.or... [gatesfoundation.org]
So yes, Mr. Gates obviously h
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The US economy is "worth" something like 18.6 trillion dollars, or 18,600 billion. 4.6 billion is 0.024 percent of the US GDP. So even if the foundation sold that all immediately, effectively nothing happens to US GDP. Average *daily* trading volume on markets like NYSE is in the hundreds of billions. Wikipedia says NYSE did $169B/day of trades in 2013. So selling 4.6B of stock in a day would be 2.7% of the daily volume of NYSE in 2013. A lot of times these foundations set up scheduled sales, to sell X number of shares on certain intervals as part of a diversement strategy.
Hey, now! It would have offset inflation for a week... or less. So nyaaaah! :P </humor>
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There's no state income tax in Washington in the first place. But charitable giving is still deductible under AMT.
This all misses the point though. Being taxed or not literally doesn't change Bill Gates' life at all. He's still a rich-ass multi-billionaire regardless. Doesn't matter to him, just a way to funnel more of it to charity. Which is literally the point of the charitable giving deduction, so it's not so much "cheating taxes" as "using the tax code exactly as intended, promoting charitable givi