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Zuckerberg Answers Critics of His Move To Give Away His Facebook Stock (facebook.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Mark Zuckerberg's announcement that he and his wife are giving away $45 billion worth of Facebook stock garnered a lot of praise and a fair bit of criticism. The Facebook CEO answered some of the apprehension in a post that reads in part: "By using an LLC instead of a traditional foundation, we receive no tax benefit from transferring our shares to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, but we gain flexibility to execute our mission more effectively. Just like everyone else, we will pay capital gains taxes when our shares are sold by the LLC."
its his money its his right to do what he wants with it.
if he wanted to get all his money in a pile and burn it, that would be his right. I dont get why people care what others do with their own money
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It's like a broken record with you retards. We get it, you are cynical of literally everything because it's an easy way to seem smart.
Not that there isn't plenty in the world to be cynical about, but Zuckerberg is not going to make money off this and will be donating most of his wealth to charity. Shrug.
is that this is all very likely a smokescreen for his political and lobbying activities. That's why he doesn't just run it as a real charity. Real charities aren't allowed to do the kinds of things Zuckerberg (probably) wants to do. He's going to use this as a very big stick to get things he wants. He's not doing this out of the kindness of his heart.
The only times I can think of when a Baron genuinely turned to charity are at the end of their lives when a few of them got the fear of God (and more importantly hell) in 'em.
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Any time you (or an ancestor or a representative you maybe voted for) vote for a tax you are saying that. And it's true.
There are things as an individual citizen that you can't spend your money to do.
There are things that government can do that charitable organizations and corporations can't do.
Thus, for some things, the government can spend the money better than you can.
That doesn't mean you should want to give the government all of your money but saying that "everything the government does is negative and a waste of money" is disingenuous.
It's now so onerous to run an organization the IRS considers a "real" charity that lots of big money that actually cares about accomplishing something, will soon be taking similar steps.
It is not *onerous* to run a legal non-profit (e.g., "real" charity). The provisions in the law Mr. Z. probably doesn't like about legal charities is that they aren't allowed to *hoard* money and must spend most of their annual income on charitable pursuits every year (a $1B will throw off a bunch of imputed income at a minimum that will need to be distributed). If you want to *hoard* your money or not spend all of it on charitable pursuits, you might consider the legal provisions *onerous* and want an LLC.
In contrast, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is an actual legal charity. What Mr. Z is doing is similar to a trust (e.g., the kind of legal structure that directs how your inheritance is distributed after you die). There's no requirement that a trust spend the money charitably (you may have heard of trials and tribulations of many trustfund babies) and there is no requirement to disclose how it is distributed.
I'll give Mr. Z the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he doesn't want a non-profit because he has no idea what charitable cause to spend his money on yet (he had so much luck with NJ schools donation) and doesn't want to be forced to spend the money right away until his has time to figure it out. On the other hand he could have just said that, so maybe he has an ulterior motive.
FWIW, as I recall being forced to distribute the imputed income annually was an issue with Warren Buffet donating his money to the B&M Gates foundation. He conditioned his donation on Mr Gates stepping down from MSFT and operating his foundation full time rather than leave it to foundation employees (and likely be pissed away).
Money that cares about accomplishing something can bloody well pay its taxes for it, whether someone thinks its cause is just or not. The whole concept of tax exemption is just asking for tax evasion, which in turn will of course result in regulation. The same goes for religious exemptions.
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