Silicon Valley people are all greedy asshole human garbage
-
@greybeard said in Silicon Valley people are all greedy asshole human garbage:
You write as if you think the fund manager has significant effect on where and when the funds are disbursed
It's more that they have a lot of power over the timing.
@greybeard said in Silicon Valley people are all greedy asshole human garbage:
The bulk of the money goes to the charities the donors intend. When they intend it to go.
So your position is that no one has tried to take advantage of the law to make a sinecure disguised as a charity?
-
@gąska said in Silicon Valley people are all greedy asshole human garbage:
I don't know how it works in USA, but in Poland, charities often spend money on services of for-profit company. I'm not aware of any law saying the service cannot be provided by company owned by charity's donor.
You'd need control or influence over a (likely bent) charity for that. If you have that, why use a donor-advised fund?
@boomzilla said in Silicon Valley people are all greedy asshole human garbage:
@greybeard said in Silicon Valley people are all greedy asshole human garbage:
You write as if you think the fund manager has significant effect on where and when the funds are disbursed
It's more that they have a lot of power over the timing.
They could perhaps delay or prevent requested disbursement, but have no significant power to speed it up. At least not without scaring off all future donations to their fund.
@greybeard said in Silicon Valley people are all greedy asshole human garbage:
The bulk of the money goes to the charities the donors intend. When they intend it to go.
So your position is that no one has tried to take advantage of the law to make a sinecure disguised as a charity?
If someone were to make a sinecure disguised as a charity they would need to make a charity. They wouldn't need or get any advantage from using a donor-advised fund.
-
@greybeard said in Silicon Valley people are all greedy asshole human garbage:
@gąska said in Silicon Valley people are all greedy asshole human garbage:
I don't know how it works in USA, but in Poland, charities often spend money on services of for-profit company. I'm not aware of any law saying the service cannot be provided by company owned by charity's donor.
You'd need control or influence over a (likely bent) charity for that. If you have that, why use a donor-advised fund?
Because donor-advised found is one that rises least suspicion for sitting on millions of dollars for years? I don't know, I'm not a billionaire, I have no idea how charities work in that level of detail.
-
@greybeard said in Silicon Valley people are all greedy asshole human garbage:
If someone were to make a sinecure disguised as a charity they would need to make a charity. They wouldn't need or get any advantage from using a donor-advised fund.
Sure, they could do that, but the fund thing seems like a way to more easily get your hands on a lot of assets.
-
@boomzilla You're missing @Greybeard's point. Given that these funds are constrained to paying out the money to charities, the only possible path to using these funds as a tax evasion strategy is this:
- Rich person sets up a dodgy charity that they control and can withdraw money from as cash.
- Rich person donates lots of their income into a donor-advised fund, rendering it tax-exempt
- Rich person instructs the donor-advised fund to give their money to the dodgy charity
- Rich person withdraws their money from the dodgy charity
@Greybeard is saying that the donor-advised fund is completely superfluous in the strategy above. It could just as well look like this:
- Rich person sets up a dodgy charity that they control and can withdraw money from as cash.
- Rich person donates lots of their income directly to the dodgy charity, rendering it tax-exempt
- Rich person withdraws their money from the dodgy charity
As such, the idea that these funds are being used - or even plausibly could be used - by greedy rich people to line their pockets at the taxman's expense is nonsense.
As for why you'd want to use a donor-advised fund: because you need to get your donations in within the tax year in order to be eligible for tax exemptions, but sometimes, for a whole bunch of reasons, you might know that you want to donate $X out of your income this year but not yet be sure where to donate it to. Maybe you're waiting for a piece of GiveWell research on the cost-effectiveness of some medical intervention to be published before you decide whether to fund it, or maybe you're Bill Gates and you're trying to negotiate a charity into committing to some project or policy that you think is worthwhile before you hand over your money to them. Sticking the money into a donor-advised fund lets you deduct it from your taxes now while retaining control of where your donation goes until after further research comes in or negotiations are concluded. That's perhaps the main thing that these funds are for. To fault them for the fact that money sticks around in them for a while before reaching charities, as the article linked to in the OP does, is to fault them for achieving their basic purpose.
... And perhaps there are reasons to object to that purpose on its own terms. I don't; I think they're a perfectly legitimate, valuable service and that they do good in the world. But to equate it with a bunch of "greedy asshole human garbage" rich people somehow scamming the taxman for their own enrichment is bullshit. (The same bullshit accusation isn't unique to donor-advised funds, by the way - lunatics commonly throw such accusations at rich people for any charitable donation they make whatsoever. It's unjust then, too.)
-
@cabbage said in Silicon Valley people are all greedy asshole human garbage:
@boomzilla You're missing @Greybeard's point. Given that these funds are constrained to paying out the money to charities, the only possible path to using these funds as a tax evasion strategy is this:
No, you've missed my point entirely, which was about the possibility of shady fund managers. I don't know why you're bringing up tax evasion schemes, because that was never really my point. Perhaps you've confused my posts with blakey's.
-
@cabbage said in Silicon Valley people are all greedy asshole human garbage:
@boomzilla You're missing @Greybeard's point. Given that these funds are constrained to paying out the money to charities, the only possible path to using these funds as a tax evasion strategy is this:
- Rich person sets up a dodgy charity that they control and can withdraw money from as cash.
- Rich person donates lots of their income into a donor-advised fund, rendering it tax-exempt
- Rich person instructs the donor-advised fund to give their money to the dodgy charity
- Rich person withdraws their money from the dodgy charity
@Greybeard is saying that the donor-advised fund is completely superfluous in the strategy above. It could just as well look like this:
- Rich person sets up a dodgy charity that they control and can withdraw money from as cash.
- Rich person donates lots of their income directly to the dodgy charity, rendering it tax-exempt
- Rich person withdraws their money from the dodgy charity
As such, the idea that these funds are being used - or even plausibly could be used - by greedy rich people to line their pockets at the taxman's expense is nonsense.
One of the most important parts of tax evasion is being able to hide the evasion. The more layers you have, the easier it is to hide.
-
@boomzilla said in Silicon Valley people are all greedy asshole human garbage:
No, you've missed my point entirely, which was about the possibility of shady fund managers.
So what is the purported scam? Are these shady fund managers somehow in collusion with the donors?
Sure, the managers are skimming off of the assets—they have expenses and they are expending effort to provide a benefit. It is up to the donors to select for value among the numerous providers in this market. Just like it is up to the donors to avoid shady charity managers.
-
@greybeard said in Silicon Valley people are all greedy asshole human garbage:
So what is the purported scam? Are these shady fund managers somehow in collusion with the donors?
Fuckin' A! Read my posts and TFA. It's (allegedly some of) the fund managers. Again, I think you guys are confusing me with blakey, who thinks everyone involved is garbage and that tax deductions are for people who want to shirk their civilizational responsibilities.
@greybeard said in Silicon Valley people are all greedy asshole human garbage:
Sure, the managers are skimming off of the assets—they have expenses and they are expending effort to provide a benefit. It is up to the donors to select for value among the numerous providers in this market. Just like it is up to the donors to avoid shady charity managers.
I think the shady fund managers and shady charity managers are all fair game for journalists to call out.
-
@boomzilla said in Silicon Valley people are all greedy asshole human garbage:
I've never seen a garbage woman that I'm aware of.
You're just using the wrong euphemism. They call them trash, if my knowledge is correct.
-
@cabbage said in Silicon Valley people are all greedy asshole human garbage:
To fault them for the fact that money sticks around in them for a while before reaching charities, as the article linked to in the OP does, is to fault them for achieving their basic purpose.
... And perhaps there are reasons to object to that purpose on its own terms. I don't; I think they're a perfectly legitimate, valuable service and that they do good in the world.But do they do more good than would have been done if they didn't exist and the donors were forced to pick the charity and goal right now, and the charity that got donation could use the funds right now? I don't think so. But to tell for sure, we'd need to compare total charity donations from before donor-advised funds were introduced to what they're now.
-
@hardwaregeek said in Silicon Valley people are all greedy asshole human garbage:
@blakeyrat said in Silicon Valley people are all greedy asshole human garbage:
culturally SF is definitely in Silicon Valley
Even if that were true, I wouldn't admit it. IMHO, the People's Soviet Socialist Republic of San Francisco is the epitome of all that is evil in the US today.
Hey now, leave San Francisco alone. The worst things about that place are packing millions of people onto a tiny peninsula and the resulting housing market being like the legal automatic firearms market: everything's old and expensive.
On the other hand, if you want to bash Berkeley, feel free.
-
@blakeyrat said in Silicon Valley people are all greedy asshole human garbage:
queue Walt Whitman quote you've probably heard from me before.
We've heard it so many times there's a backlog?
-
@boomzilla said in Silicon Valley people are all greedy asshole human garbage:
It's (allegedly some of) the fund managers.
The problem isn't the principle. The problem is in the implementation, the fees structure, the subcontracts issued as ways to squirrel the money away out of the charity into other companies owned by the fund manager or his/her cronies, etc. Lots of ways to embezzle without committing outright theft, alas, and entirely far too many people who are not sufficiently honest…
-
@dkf Exactly.
