This could be a fantastic story of philanthropy. We just have to trust Zuckerberg. I happen to trust him as much as I trust Facebook, which is a total of 99%, over the course of my lifetime.
By the time we're 90, both Mark and I will be totally on board. Also, senile.
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Not that surprising if true, basically he's giving money to himself.
It is true, but he's not just giving the money to himself. He's transferring the money to an organisation he controls which will then focus on using the money towards charitable organisations/causes and social movements.
The money is still going to end up leaving the Zuckerberg family and going to help the world. People just seem weirdly miffed he's not just dumping 45b into a charity right off the bat.
It is true, but he's not just giving the money to himself. He's transferring the money to an organisation he controls which will then focus on using the money towards charitable organisations/causes and social movements.
The money is still going to end up leaving the Zuckerberg family and going to help the world. People just seem weirdly miffed he's not just dumping 45b into a charity right off the bat.
I'm not necessarily miffed, just highly skeptical about how much of it ends up actually going to charities. As the article states an LLC has no legal obligation to use their money for charitable purposes. The Clintons famously did something similar
I am by no means an accountant or a tax lawyer, but... I am assuming there is a great benefit in donating shares, as opposed to cash, and capturing the capital gains in the charitable foundation, which is tax exempt. Second, he can't just sell all those shares at once - that would be a debacle of monumental proportions - they have to drip sell them over years I assume. Somebody who actually knows tax/estate planning can weigh in.
Wow, you're a champ at moving the goal posts when wrong, hey? I started by observing that I don't know how it works in the states, but if it's similar to Canada, then XYZ.
Honestly doing a LLC makes a lot of sense for a guy who wants control, and less loopholes to get what he wants accomplished. There is a terrific talk on Ted talks that opened my eyes to how mistaken we often are about charities and the metrics we use to judge them.
Maybe cynicism is only reserved for young billionares, since no one raised this kind of fuss with the other 10 or so billionares which joined the 90% club started by Gates and Buffet.
Mark Zuckerberg's announcement on Tuesday that he would be giving away 99% of his Facebook stock to "advancing human potential and promoting equality" was greeted with universal cheers, right?
Well, no.
There were a lot of people who found bad things to say about the announcement.
They fell into several camps.
The 'gotcha — it's not really a charity!' camp
BuzzFeed pointed out that the organization they're donating to, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, is a corporation — an LLC — rather than a nonprofit charity. In addition, the initiative won't necessarily be donating all the money to charitable causes — it will also make private investments and do things like advocacy work and lobbying.
Entrepreneur Anil Dash called the structure of the giveaway "clearly flawed," but admitted that:
It's impossible to know how much of those flaws are about ulterior corporatist goals and how much are accommodations of arcane regulations. For example, almost all non-profit organizations are founded as conventional corporations and then converted after the fact, so starting as an LLC may not be an indicator of future purpose.
As Bloomberg explains, setting up the organization as an LLC allows it to spend money on lobbying, earn money to reinvest in the organization, do joint ventures with fewer restrictions, and lets them give away money at a pace they determine rather than the mandatory 5% per year for non-profits.
The 'Zuck sucks' camp
Gawker pointed out that Zuckerberg's donation is going toward furthering the things that he thinks would help the world, which are not necessarily the things that other people think would help the world.
For instance, the writer called Zuckerberg's question "Can you learn and experience 100 times more than we do today?" a "patently hellish" vision that could only be hatched by a "technocrat."
more on the link above
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Mr. Zuckerberg didn’t create these tax laws and cannot be criticized for minimizing his tax bills. If he had created a foundation, he would have accrued similar tax benefits. But what this means is that he amassed one of the greatest fortunes in the world — and is likely never to pay any taxes on it. Anytime a superwealthy plutocrat makes a charitable donation, the public ought to be reminded that this is how our tax system works. The superwealthy buy great public relations and adulation for donations that minimize their taxes.
I'm sure he'll make some donations to charity now and then, but unless he's going to actually donate more to charity than he would have paid taxes, this mostly benefits himself as he can both pay less and get to decide where his money goes.
It's the libertarian dream.
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So a guy worked his whole life to amass a huge fortune, decides to gift most if it away, AND he wants a say in how its distributed? What jerk. He should just leave it on the curb and others should do with it how they like, without Mark having a say.
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Originally Posted by Bingo
Jesus this site these days
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Originally Posted by Barnet Flame
He just seemed like a very nice person. I loved Squiggy.
So a guy worked his whole life to amass a huge fortune, decides to gift most if it away, AND he wants a say in how its distributed? What jerk. He should just leave it on the curb and others should do with it how they like, without Mark having a say.
He should pay capital gains tax on the sale of the shares, donate the remaining funds and then allocate the benefit of the charitable tax credit to whatever he wishes. This kind of stuff is the reason the US is in financial trouble.
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So a guy worked his whole life to amass a huge fortune, decides to gift most if it away, AND he wants a say in how its distributed? What jerk. He should just leave it on the curb and others should do with it how they like, without Mark having a say.
Despite the hype it's highly questionable how much he's actually going to donate. At this point all he's doing is doing some investment restructuring for tax avoidance purposes. He's saying it's because he wants to do extensive charity work, but if that was the case, why not create an actual charity fund?
Heck, why bother with avoiding taxes at all? The guy is insanely rich, and the money keeps pouring in with no end in sight. It's not like he'd run out of money to donate even if he did pay taxes.
So when somebody does something that obviously benefits himself but isn't in any way necessary to do the vaguely described good things he says he's about to do, it's understandable that people are sceptical.
This is no Gates Foundation, which is an actual charity that has had numerous specific goals from the start.
Besides, paying taxes is vastly more important than charity for a safe, healthy and functioning society.
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