Sunday, May 10, 2020

Time To Limit Life Of Billionaire Oligarch Bill Gates's Foundation?

Obama Awarding  Medal To Billionaire Oligarch Bill Gates  In November 2016
As University of Virginia Commonwealth Professor of History  Oliver Zunz observed in his 2011 Philanthropy In America book, "the foundation that Bill and Melinda Gates created in 2000 with their Microsoft fortune, reinforced by investor Warren Buffett's gift of part of his own fortune to it, is the world's largest...foundation, today's counterpart of the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1970's and the Ford Foundation in the 1960's.

But as the Philanthropy In America book also recalled:

"In drafting...tax legislation in the Senate Finance Committee [in 1969], Senator [Albert] Gore [Sr.] introduced...clause that limited the life of foundations to 40 years. `The record shows,' Gore argued, `that in overwhelming proportions and instances foundations are created for the purpose of tax avoidance, to extend economic benefits to members of the creator's family and to continue family ownership and control of property.'...

"...There was also some support on the left for putting a legal limit on a foundation's life...But...liberal philanthropists were opposed...The foundations countered [Gore's] charges against them...and the amendment to defeat the death sentence [proposed by Gore Sr. to put a legal limit on a foundation's life] passed the Senate 53 to 35 [in 1969]..."

No comments: