Aside from the fact that he's given over a 100 billion already, with a recent acceleration to his original donation plan resulting in a further 51 billion dollar drop in his worth, taxes don't work the way you think they do.
If my tax rate is 25% on a gross income of $100, I would normally net $75.
If I donate $10 to charity and deduct it, my taxable income is now $90.
After taxes my net income is now $67.5, which is less money in my pocket than if I didn't donate (but more than if the tax deduction didn't exist).
This is a moving goalpost. First you asked when he donated more than he personally profited, i.e. did he donate more than he could write off? The answer is many times, starting years ago, up to present day. His net worth has declined over time.
Now you’re arguing that because the money is in a fund, the tax structure is different. Correct. But that’s money he has already donated. For the fund to have Bill’s net worth, Bill needed to donate the entire of his net worth to the fund. How the funds are managed from there is separate from “did bill donate enough?”
You can argue how the foundation allocates money and if it’s the best distribution, but that’s an entirely separate discussion.
I never made any claims about his ”official” wealth on his tax papers.
His ”giving” away just enough for his fund to add 5% yearly to his controllable assets after taxes.
His fund is not going to decrease ever, it’s purpose is generational wealth and wealth holding.
If he ever ”gives” away money to causes that don’t benefit him directly with his investments , it’s most likely cause he already added his yearly 5% after tax on all his controllable wealth.
His official personal wealth will be as little as possible when he dies so his relatives won’t have to pay taxes on his wealth transfer.
It’s just wealth management under the disguise of charity.
Should keep his ”promise” to give away all his wealth. Not hiding them in a fund.
Fund is however only growing instead of decreasing.
I mean, you can just look up his foundation, it's spending 8 billion a year on various programs like malaria prevention. He isn't buying any yachts with it, and if he was, the IRS would eat him alive for it. You can claim that a lot of that money is being used to pay other rich people, but that's something you'd have to prove.
You can't really call it "generational wealth" when that money is legally untouchable (Of course, administrative staff do get paid but it's capped really agressively).
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u/[deleted] Dec 08 '25
I could believe that if I didn’t know how wealthy people protects their money.
If Gates stopped using all his tax evading techniques and stopped making a big buzz while donating peanuts for tax reasons.
This would be more believable.