Reply #126: all the capitalists are doing at tax time is having a good laugh. [View All]

"Private charitable contributions in the U.S. amount to more than $200 billion annually. According to Mark Dowie in his book American Foundations, foundations "provide but 7 percent of all charitable resources." Reports Dowie, "recent studies of individual giving suggest that low- and middle-income donors became more generous as the twentieth century progressed, while the wealthy decreased their giving."

And, according to journalist Richard Rothstein, for every $10 a philanthropist like Bill Gates gives away, the government loses about $4 in tax breaks.

Meanwhile, the CEOs are practicing their other tax-dodging moves. Microsoft, for example, opened offices in the 1990s in Nevada, which has no corporate income tax, to evade paying taxes in Washington state. In the first seven years of this scam, the company sheltered more than $60 billion in revenue.

In sum, all the capitalists are doing at tax time is having a good laugh."

http://www.socialism.com/fsarticles/vol27no4/robber_baron.html

Low and middle income folks are more generous but who gets all the phony PR press, advertisements promoting the concentration of wealth.



Lessons—With This Gift Horse, Take a Very Close Look

Michael E. Porter, a professor at Harvard Business School, has observed that some of what foundations give away is in effect the public's money. Philanthropists get tax breaks when they endow foundations: for every $10 they donate, government loses about $4 in taxes.

Because foundations give away only about 5 1/2 percent of their assets each year, public institutions would do better in the short run if grants came directly from individuals: for the $4 in lost taxes, schools and other services get foundation grants of 55 cents a year.

http://www.epi.org/publications/entry/webfeat_lessons20021016/


America's poor are its most generous givers

"The lowest-income fifth (of the population) always give at more than their capacity," said Virginia Hodgkinson, former vice president for research at Independent Sector, a Washington-based association of major nonprofit agencies. "The next two-fifths give at capacity, and those above that are capable of giving two or three times more than they give."

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/330/story/68456.html

How come we don't have multi million dollar commercials telling us how much more generous the poor are.