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turtlejelly1 t1_j8ty7eu wrote

Reply to comment by voyageur77 in Elon Musk donates almost $2bn of Tesla shares to charity by Nergaal

I don’t think you understand the legal system… They are utilizing loop holes that are in the system which appear illegal and the system knows there is a loop hole that is being utilized. They won’t do anything about it because it helps the .01%.

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voyageur77 t1_j8u0lul wrote

As a lawyer who actually works on these issues, I think I have a pretty good idea of how the system works.

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turtlejelly1 t1_j8u1ktq wrote

Oh, I’ll find my own way out! I hope you take advantage of your skills and loopholes that the .01% know since you studied and worked hard to attain! And then you can teach us!

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Pussy_handz t1_j8uwj61 wrote

LuL My reddit and personal googling says this bullshit...Yeah well Im a fucking lawyer that specializes in it. Actually perfect.

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Badtrainwreck t1_j8ukdfe wrote

If you’re a lawyer, then you know the ways in which people abuse nonprofits, but you haven’t stated anything in how they abuse them, you’ve just essentially said “rich people not bad, they aren’t doing anything illegal.” Then you’ve asked me to explain to you all the basics, which are simple things which you should already know, especially you shouldn’t have been confused by anything since your expertise would inform you even if I’m piss poor at explaining it.

It’s more likely you’re not a lawyer or you’re a lawyer who helps people take advantage of the loopholes that exist and on your spare time you defend what you do on the internet.

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voyageur77 t1_j8un919 wrote

You aren't explaining the "basics", all of your info is completely wrong. That's why I stopped responding to you, but I guess I can do one more.

You say that putting a business into an entity avoids estate tax: wrong, the value of the entity is still subject to estate tax. You say transferring "control" of the entity instead of giving the business at death doesn't count as inheritance and avoids tax: wrong, you would just owe gift tax instead of estate tax at the exact same tax rate, AND lose the step-up in tax basis from inheritance. (By the way, inheritance tax is not the same thing as estate tax, you seem to be mixing them up). You think Musk gets to write off donating $2 billion of stock to his foundation: wrong, the deduction for giving stock to your foundation is limited to 30% of AGI, and his AGI is not that much. You say the foundation can spend its money to increase the value of Tesla: wrong, it is illegal for a foundation to promote a for-profit business instead of charitable purposes. You say the foundation then spends its money on lobbying: wrong, it is illegal for a foundation to do a significant amount of lobbying, and any lobbying expenses have such a high penalty that basically nobody does it.

These are all actual IRS rules that exist. You have no sources for what you're saying because it doesn't exist in the real world. Where did you hear this stuff anyway, it has to be either Reddit comments or TikTok?

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Badtrainwreck t1_j8upqrl wrote

If you create the nonprofit, and within its bylaws you’re an employee who just runs the nonprofit, then your child can take control just by being the next employee in line to takeover. It’s not a gift it’s a job.

Let’s not overcomplicate this, whomever is in control of the board is in control. How you gain control does not need to be a gift or an inheritance.

You said it’s illegal to promote a for profit business as a nonprofit, but what does promote mean? It’s about not letting your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Coca-Cola works with the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation to increase the number of farmers producing the ingredients they need for their products. The charity is just doing charitable work and the Coca-Cola company is just donating money to a charity.

You say a nonprofit can’t lobby, not all lobbying is lobby the way we see it, it can simply be the bill and Melinda gates foundation holding a fundraiser to help with increasing access to vaccines and a few politicians attend to increase their healthcare credentials and rub shoulders with rich and powerful donors.

It’s not about everything being illegal, but it’s about creating environments in which the parties involved benefit.

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voyageur77 t1_j8v1aae wrote

A private foundation cannot own more than 20% of a company, so no, you can't pass control over the board of a business to your kids this way. And there is no tax advantage to Coca Cola paying farmers through a charity. They could pay directly and deduct it as a business expense anyway. What tax do you think this is cheating on?

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Badtrainwreck t1_j8v21cb wrote

Cheating on taxes? Again remember you and me have spoken about several ways in which nonprofits are used to increase someone’s financial position, not all ways involve taxes. One way was using a nonprofit to create rental income on property the nonprofit utilizes. That’s not avoiding taxes that’s benefiting financially in a legal method by utilizing a nonprofit in a way to enrich oneself.

Because Coca-Cola wants to do business with bill gates, he is one of the primary shareholders of Coca-Cola, plus Coca-Cola wants to be able to pay farmers less money for their products but there aren’t enough farmers producing what they want, so they are increasing the number of farmers to increase competitiveness to drive cocacolas costs further into the ground

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voyageur77 t1_j8v2mta wrote

Bill Gates does not own any Coca Cola stock. Zero. Google says their foundation sold all of it 8 years ago. Your information is comically bad.

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Badtrainwreck t1_j8v42eg wrote

I’m an idiot, I can’t believe I wasn’t able to do a simple google search, egg on my face. Had I googled it I’d have seen that they disinvested in 2014, and I’d have also seen they did the charity work to increase the number of farmers in 2010! 4 years before selling and as we all know that time travel isn’t possible, but idk I’m not a lawyer

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Badtrainwreck t1_j8uz3da wrote

I just want to add you’ve seen the link of the Bill Gates Foundation offering grants to help farmers produce ingredients Coca-Cola needs, but it’s also important to know that Bill Gates stock ownership is public and he owns 1.599 billion in Coca-Cola stocks, so if you’re a lawyer and all of this sounds illegal, then we should have someone investigate. The government clearly isn’t

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