It's a tax write-off and they get to control where the money goes. It's much different than paying taxes like the little people. They are able to use this tool to influence public policy on a scale outside of the realm of voters and their elected representatives.
Zucks pet project right now is immigration reform so he can bring in cheap tech talent to undercut the American worker. It's self serving. Every dollar you give to a foundation offsets what you owe in taxes, especially inheritance taxes when his children through trust funds get to run the foundations next.
This analysis of the walton foundation may give a hint of whats to come.
The Gates Foundation was described as a shell for tax avoidance by philanthropist and accounting expert, Sheldon Drobny. Techrights has collected evidence that shows the same and will organize it here.
Through the foundation, Bill, Melinda and Microsoft maintain pharmaceutical patent investments, tobacco investments, investments in alcoholic beverages, petroleum investments, investments in experimental and controversial crops, and even investments in news/media. Gates need not even pay tax, though he keeps control of the assets and uses that control to influence private and public policy. Money talks and politicians can in turn be persuaded to buy from Microsoft. This dependence/lock-in cascades down to businesses and homes, creating a revenue stream that would not exist in a free market.
Gates is also able to bring public money to himself through energy and public health policy. As Gates has diversified, his corrupting influence has spread to other portions of the economy.
We have provided extensive evidence for the above claims in many past summaries which include the following (sorted in chronological order although we took a much closer look in later years). As Techrights will report fraud in other areas as it is discovered.
http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Gates_Foundation_Critique
Philanthropic funds are common among the super-rich in the US; they enable tax avoidance provided five per cent of net investment assets are given away annually. What quickly set Gates’ fund apart was its orientation towards the poor – rather than élite culture or religion – and its sheer size.
Philanthropy – and particularly philanthropy on this scale – isn’t a black-and-white issue though, and important questions have been raised about the way the Foundation operates, and the impact of its work.
The first question concerns accountability.
While only around five per cent of the Foundation’s annual global health funding goes directly to lobbying and advocacy, this money (over $100 million) talks loudly. Gates funds institutions ranging from US university departments to major international development NGOs. The Foundation is the main player in several global health partnerships and one of the single largest donors to the WHO. This gives it considerable leverage in shaping health policy priorities and intellectual norms.
Gregg Gonsalves, an experienced AIDS activist and co-founder of the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition, welcomes the Foundation’s funding, but is concerned about its power. ‘Depending on what side of bed Gates gets out of in the morning,’ he remarks, ‘it can shift the terrain of global health.’
In 2010, the Gates Foundation gave in grants $2.5 billion The World Health Organization, meanwhile, operates on less than a year $2 billion
The Foundation’s 26 strategies are reviewed annually, and although CEO Jeff Rakes stresses that it is making ‘a systematic effort to listen’ to grantees, Gonsalves and others are sceptical: ‘
It’s not a democracy. It’s not even a constitutional monarchy. It’s about what Bill and Melinda want. We depend on them learning, and it’s not as if there are many points of influence for this.’
‘The Foundation is more than a collection of grants and projects,’ says Dr David McCoy, a public health doctor and researcher at University College London and an advisor to the People’s Health Movement. ‘Through its funding it also operates through an interconnected network of organizations and individuals across academia and the NGO and business sectors.
This allows it to leverage influence through a kind of “group-think” in international health.’ In 2008 the WHO’s head of malaria research, Aarata Kochi, accused a Gates Foundation ‘cartel’ of suppressing diversity of scientific opinion, claiming the organization was ‘accountable to no-one other than itself’.
http://newint.org/features/2012/04/01/bill-gates-charitable-giving-ethics/
There is a lot of information out there that documents how foundations are a tool of the rich for influence and tax avoidance. Zuck needs to pay his 30% to the tax payer like anyone else.
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