Yay, a small portion of the taxes that the wealthy like her should have paid over the years that could have gone to the same thing but based on the decisions of society and not dependent on one wealthy person!
I agree that the insanely disproportionate taxes are causing more problems than donations are solving. However, as billionaires go, Bill and Melinda Gates are exceptionally philanthropic.
Philanthropy is a way for people who created wealth on the backs of their underpaid employees in their businesses that broke multiple laws and dodged taxes. If they actually cared about people they would have paid higher wages or had profit sharing, and would not have pushed for tax breaks for the wealthy.
Nobody calls a blue collar person who donates to charity a philanthropist.
You’re right, but they’ve almost eradicated polio worldwide. So there’s that.
Bill spoke out against Trump’s disproportionate tax cuts, as well as the growing wealth inequality, and called for increasing taxes on the wealthy.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/03/bill-gates-americas-tax-system-is-not-fair.html
He also cofounded The Giving Pledge, an agreement to give the majority of his wealth away to charity rather than pass it on to his children.
And they could be just as philanthropic while also paying their fair share of taxes because they’re just that rich.
He is, and he’s asking the government to make him pay more. He’s a rare one for sure.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/03/bill-gates-americas-tax-system-is-not-fair.html
Indeed. Now she has only ca. USD$11B left over to survive with. She can buy only five, possibly six Sentinel ICBMs.
What We Want Now
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$11B is her net worth prior to issuing the $1B donation. When was the last time you gave 9% of your net worth to a cause?
Bill and Melinda WERE philanthropic. Then Bill did a cheat and eventually got divorced.
She was always his better half. Bill has always been a piece of shit business man and only started his philanthropy due to Melinda. That’s why there’s not so much of that same philanthropy from ol’ Microsoft, himself, as of late.
“The decisions of society” is how we got Trump and enough wrong-wing Supreme Court Justices to eliminate reproductive rights. You really think the billions we could get in taxes from the billionaires would be wasted on restoring rights and supporting women and children, when there’s a military industrial complex to feed? Until the day capitalism collapses, Melinda Gates and MacKenzie Scotts should be praised. Not for their own egos, but in order to entice those who live by “what’s in it for me?” into better uses of their obscene wealth than yachts.
I’m not going to praise people for giving back a small portion of their ill gotten gains. That would be like praising the mob for opening soup kitchens with the money they made through criminal enterprise.
I am once again simultaneously glad this is happening and infuriated that we live in a world where it is necessary for people suffering to rely on the largess of billionaires.
But think of the tax implications for her and the congratulatory slaps on the back. See? The system works.
It’s not bad but, is not like she’s making some huge sacrifice either. I think she’ll manage to live off the 100+ billion dollars she has left.
Sadly, even if that billion dollars was somehow taxed, the obstructionists in government would be sure to stop it from going to reproductive rights. So oddly enough a billionaire is the only way for this kind of good to happen.
in the United States*
There are other countries that manage taxes just fine.
This is a policy failure.
Eat. Billionaires.
Melinda > Bill
I knew when I read these comments people would be criticising her.
