MSFT Co-founder Giving Half of His Money Away
Charitable billionaires are promising half of their money to charity.
Bill Gates is famously a very charitable man. However, there's another charitable soul in Microsoft's history. Paul Allen, who helped Gates' found Microsoft in the 70's but left in the 80's and officially resigned from his place on the board in 2000, is constantly donating money to different causes. Now, Allen has promised to give away the majority of his fortune when he dies.
Paul Allen is already a dedicated philanthropist. He's donated millions upon millions of dollars to the University of Washington and has made substantial multi-million dollar donations to various different charities and medical organizations. Allen has already given more than the average person can (the New York Times puts it at about $1 billion so far), but last night the Microsoft co-founder said he would be giving more than half of his $13.5 billion to philanthropy.
"I’ve planned for many years now that the majority of my estate will be left to philanthropy to continue the work of the foundation and to fund nonprofit scientific research, like the ground breaking work being done at the Allen Institute for Brain Science," NYT cites Allen as saying in a statement.
Allen's pledge is in response to Warren Buffet and Bill Gates' call for the country’s billionaires to give half their money to charity. Several other billionaires have made the same promise as Allen, including Eli and Edythe Broad and John and Ann Doerr.
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It'll be great as long as I'm getting half of that.
Nice effort, but the true problem with charity is that there is so little control over how the money is actually spent...
I wonder if half of the money given by men like Allen and Gates actually reaches the group they intended to help. Most of it will 'accidentally' disappear in pockets along the way.
Question: Is there a law in the US by which people who make charitable donations get smaller taxes, or a tax refund or something like that? it's just what I heard.
Only 10% of charitable donations need to be spent on the actual cause. The other 90% can be used for "admin", i.e. staff, i.e. the guy who runs the organisation.
Question: Is there a law in the US by which people who make charitable donations get smaller taxes, or a tax refund or something like that? it's just what I heard.
Don't know that, but in many European countries there is such a law. A gift of €30 or more makes you apply for a tax reduction. However, it's less than half of the money given and its hard capped around €1000. Still, a nice gesture of course.
I do not have an information about all the European countries, but in Germany you just don't pay income tax from the sum you donate. Practically you get max €4.20 back, if you donate €10 from your after taxes income.
The sum of the tax-free donation is limited up to about 20% of you annual income. The charity activities don't affect the rest of you income and don't affect other taxes or obligation social insurances.
similar in the UK. if you donate £10 to charity, then TAX can be claimed back from that amount so that the charity will receive an extra £2 or so at no extra cost to yourself. its acalled "gift aid" over here