The Good Face, Not the Good Book: Beware of Mark Zuckerberg bearing gifts.

American Spectator ^ | 12/21/12 | Jay D. Homnick

[rhema]

In wonderful news on the philanthropy front, Mark Zuckerberg has contributed 500 million dollars to… well, to an organization that will spawn a subsidiary foundation to contribute to… well, a funding mechanism that will facilitate his ability to contribute to… well, to things involving education and its ability to contribute to… well, to the general wellbeing of society and its ability to contribute to… well, Mark Zuckerberg’s reputation. And the government.

It is too early to predict just who if anyone will benefit from this “gift” to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. Take a look at this organization’s website and it becomes clear they are sitting on quite a gold mine. They boast of two billion dollars under management, with a smorgasbord of investment options for these funds.

In essence, you take your half-billion and donate it instantly by putting it into a mutual fund of your choice. You actually retain control of the money, deciding how it is invested. In the meantime, plenty of nice commissions and salaries are being generated for the fund managers. Credit for your generosity is cashed in immediately and so is your tax deduction.

In your mind, the money is still yours, sitting there and growing nicely. You can use it as bargaining chips and leverage for future business deals, for public relations, even granting salaried positions to your relatives down the line if you choose. In a year from now or ten years from now, you may hear that Zuckerberg gave ten million dollars to a school somewhere, becoming a hero all over again by using the same money.

All of this would be tolerable if there was a likelihood that really good things would result from this fund being established.

[Carry_Okie]

Yup, the .01% don't pay taxes like the 1% do.

IMO, we should get rid of all charitable deductions entirely, even churches. There is way too much corruption involved to police it to reserve it to actual public benefit and conservative pastors and priests would finally get to speak freely.

[The_Reader_David]

Getting rid of charitable deductions is the wannabe-totalitarian left’s wet-dream: destroy funding for the non-state civil society so there is no space between the state and the individual.

Charitable deductions are the only deduction (other than cost of producing income) which I would leave completely unfettered. The sole tax reform which actually improves capital formation (by making it more profitable to put capital to maximal use rather than engage in tax-avoidance strategies), but could also be seen as a “soak the rich” scheme is to cap the amount of income which can be excluded from taxation at normal rates (not just deductions, exemptions, plus deductions, plus tax-exempt source income, plus percentages of tax credits and of income taxed at lower rates) — I strongly advocate such an approach, but I would exclude the charitable deduction from the cap.

It is not just the individual’s rights which need to be defended against the expansion of the state, but the whole of the non-state society (corporations of every variety, churches, private hospitals, private charities of every sort, and yes “NGOs”).

[Carry_Okie]

Getting rid of charitable deductions is the wannabe-totalitarian left’s wet-dream: destroy funding for the non-state civil society so there is no space between the state and the individual.

Nonsense. The totalitarian left obtains the vast bulk of its funding by tax-exempt foundations belonging to the extremely wealthy.

Charitable deductions are the only deduction (other than cost of producing income) which I would leave completely unfettered.

Apparently. Which is evidence that you are completely misinformed. I too prefer charity to socialized dependency. However, real charity is not dependent upon approval by the government. Worse, the strings government places on charities are enforced with great prejudice, allowing Marxist preachers like Jeremiah Wright extreme latitude while breathing down the necks of more conservative pastors.

No. If you knew that the nascence of our social calamity in Kinsey was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, or that Ford killed the nuclear industry by funding Greenpeace to get Carter to sign that EO banning fuel reprocessing, or that Ted Turner kicked in the cash for the Center for Biological Diversity's horde of suits against ranching, or that it was energy investors who put a greenie lawyer in charge of California Edison to get them to push for carbon trading... it's a very long list. The cost of regulations pursuant to environmental lawsuits alone have cost the American domestic economy trillions. Worse, if you knew that the bulk of the lost production and cost of jail, disease, violent crime, and family dysfunction pursuant to rampant sexual immorality is, by itself, absolutely worth getting rid of the deduction entirely. If these people had to pay in taxes for the cost of what they sponsor, they would never do it.

[RetiredTexasVet]

Yes, but those lefties are a minority when you look at charitable giving as a whole. I can guarantee that the Food Stamp President and his ilk would wet themselves if they could defund Salvation Army. Ask real knowledgeable people who does the real work ... Salvation Army or FEMA/Red Crescent. It’s the cost of good having to suffer the scum sucking fake charities of the left.

[Carry_Okie]

Yes, but those lefties are a minority when you look at charitable giving as a whole.

Not when it comes to propitiating judicial activism. I have a copy of Who Really Cares on my shelf, so I do know whereof you speak. It is my observation that were these Marxist thugs cut off, our economy would be so much bigger that it would be well worth the loss of temporary cash flow.

[StAnDeliver]

What you have to do is look at the differences between autocratic 'charities' like the Gates Foundation, versus service orgs like the Salvation Army, and then exploit those differences in the tax code.

There are pitifully few conservatives in power well acquainted with tax code minutae, and those that have that knowledge like Ryan are busy trying to save the US from itself, rather than exercising that power like a Democrat would.

[Carry_Okie]

I’d say that is a reasonably legit observation in principal, however to exercise that kind of discretion in the tax code is to invite endless litigation from the Slave Party legal machine, thus inviting ever more minutae into the tax code, itself begging to be challenged on constitutional equal protection grounds. Inasmuch and as a result, although the left would be tied up saving itself (as opposed to the other mischief it would do) that might be a good thing, I’m not sure it can be done in practice.