Tuesday, July 16, 2013

ACCOUNTANT: Bill Gates Foundation is Bufffett's Tax Laundromat

Well this helps explain Buffett's huge donations to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

According to Francine McKenna, a CPA, the Gates Foundation is Warren Buffet's personal.tax laundromat. The donations for tax deductions, reduce his future estate taxes Buffett. At the same time, the Foundation gets the donations on full market value basis. Thus, it can sell immediately with no tax, while Buffett gets the deductions.

It should be noted that this maneuver is coming from a guy who regularly calls for "shared sacrifice" and higher taxes on people earning more than $1 million.

UPDATE:

McKenna, btw, also responds to the charge that Buffett is giving most of "his wealth away." What Buffett is doing is giving away a large chunk of the publicly held Berkshire Hathaway stock he has. It is well known that Buffett has a large personal portfolio, exact size unknown. That's completely sheltered by his donations.


UPDATE 2

It should also be noted that Buffett has given substantial funds to various foundations run by either his sister Doris, or one of his three children, Howard, Susan and Peter.

There is nothing wrong with structuring wealth to avoid tax burdens, but it is hypocritical to be calling for tax increases on others at the same time.

2 comments:

  1. When these oligarchs call for "shared sacrifice" they mean YOUR shared sacrifice. They are nothing more than racketeers with suits and briefcases.

    Trust them at your own peril...

    ReplyDelete
  2. According to Francine McKenna, a CPA, the Gates Foundation is Warren Buffet's personal.tax laundromat. The donations for tax deductions, reduce his future estate taxes Buffett. studio commercialista milano

    ReplyDelete