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Comment by erikpukinskis | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand. This is how the tax code works. If you give the money away to charity the Government doesn't take income tax on it. That is a law that was passed. The whole point is to get people to give money to charities because that's a good thing.

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It's been argued that it gives a few incredibly wealthy people undue influence on public spending. Instead of being taxed and then spent according to the government's priorities, which is at some level accountable to the public, a few wealthy people get to decide what programs have merit and pour their money into them.

Eh, the United States spends a lot of that tax money on the military. I don't have a problem with wealthy people making their own call on the guns vs. butter question.

> I don't have a problem with wealthy people making their own call on the guns vs. butter question.

You can donate to military organizations that fund warfare directly?

Exactly. Would you trust Mark Zuckerberg with spending 15bn for the supposed betterment of society, or would you trust the US government?

Given that the US government wastes so much via corrupt deals, inefficiencies, insane surveillance, and absurd military spending- I would favor Zuckerberg directing the fund.

"A lot" is relative.

Wikipedia says the military is 17% of expenditures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expenditures_in_the_United_Sta...

This may or may not constitute a lot, depending on who you are.

If we're going to talk about relative military spending... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...

I'm not sure why you're getting down voted for this.

A lot is an interesting question, especially given this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...) which if you sort by percentage of GDP puts the US below Russia.

Is it that surprising that the country with far and away the highest GDP has the highest military spending in real dollars?

So, not a total expert on this, but I'm pretty sure that 17% is the DoD budget, which is (by some estimates) about half of the actual total military spending. By other estimates maybe more than half - it depends what you consider "military spending."

For example, iirc, a significant portion of NASA's budget is for military applications - spy satellites and such. Similarly, the DoD budget doesn't consider veteran's benefits owed to former soldiers, which is a large portion of the long-term obligations comprising the national debt. It also leaves out most of the national security complex (DHS, NSA, FBI), military applications in the Department of Energy, and so on.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...

I figured some expenses were hiding, but hadn't found enough of them yet.

I'm cobbling together some more data points here. They aren't all for the same year, but are close to recent.

  - Veterans Affairs: ~160B [0]
  - DHS: ~65B [1]
  - "non-military intelligence spending" (I assume including a solid chunk of NSA and CIA): ~55B [2]
  - FBI: ~8B [3]
  - retirement from Treasury (for service before 1984. The reference is interesting!) ~8B [4]

This tallies up to an additional $296B or 8% (for 25% total).

The Project On Government Oversight has a similar table [5] that includes some of my items, some additional items, and excludes some of mine. It reaches a $1 trillion "National Security" budget, which shakes out to about 28% of spending.

Thanks for the linking and push to keep digging! The "Military budget and total US federal spending" section of the article linked in the parent was a good jumping off point for me, as well.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Ve... [1]: http://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/FY_2016_... [2]: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/02/02/black-budget-... [3]: http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/jmd/legacy/2013/1... [4]: http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB3005/index1.html [5]: http://www.pogo.org/our-work/straus-military-reform-project/...

EDIT: formatting

Or put another way, the people who create something worth $300B out of nothing get to decide what happens to their share of the $300B. And as a bonus, these are people with demonstrated success in their ventures, and they are given free reign to pursue their vision fully. Whereas the public sector is a mess of a dysfunctional congress, infighting, posturing, pork, global warming deniers, and discourse targeted to short attention spans and the 24 hour news cycle.

There is something very troubling about the idea that the more successful/valuable your creation becomes, the less entitled you are to invest the fruit of your success into your next idea.

Why should Joe Schmoe earning an honest $75K/year have less say than that though?

Mark Zuckerberg isn't taking anything away from the $75k/year guy. He just has more because he created something valuable.

If you are an artist so good that your paintings are worth $1M each, should you get to have them? Or should someone walk in your door and say "whoa there, you have too much now, we're taking your paintings until you have the same amount of wealth as the $75k/year guy"?

> If you are an artist so good that your paintings are worth $1M each, should you get to have them? Or should someone walk in your door and say "whoa there, you have too much now, we're taking your paintings until you have the same amount of wealth as the $75k/year guy"?

If you paint million dollar paintings and leave them in your studio, I guarantee you the IRS will not knock on your door and say "you have too many paintings now, we're going to take them now".

If you sell those paintings, and make an INCOME, the IRS will expect you to pay INCOME TAX.

Seriously. How is the basic concept of taxes so hard to understand?

Zuck is paying his taxes and isn't breaking any laws with any of this. The OP submission and most of these replies really sounds like jealousy than anything else.

The comment I replied to was talking about a tax agency coming into your home/office and claiming privately created artworks because you "have too many".

Wealth taxes exist in other countries and are proposed by some people for the US. I was speaking generally and not in reference to a specific tax regime. And besides, converting the paintings to money would be necessary before it could be used for charitable purposes anyway, so the distinction you are drawing is not very relevant.

I'm not opposed to taxes but I am opposed to the idea that taxes should equalize everyone's wealth and that all big investment should come from the government.

My point was that it's not fair that someone gets to pay a smaller tax rate just because his taxable base is larger. If anything, it should be the other way around. My original income tax vs. capital gains tax parallel was wrong though, but the premise is the same. If Joe Schmoe has managed to invest $5K in the stock market and grew it to $10K, his capital gains tax rate shouldn't be higher than Zuck's.

No one's saying he can't get profit and put it back into the system, as long as you _pay your taxes_. But if you're not paying your taxes, and you're resorting to the private sector, then you're really just squirreling away your wealth to do what you see is fit. We've seen how that works in 501c4s, with dark money and PACs. We've seen how that worked with Carnegie-style redistribution at the expense of working class labor. And we don't want to see that anymore. If you're going to invest the fruit of your success into a next idea, thats fine, but don't forget that real people, the public, made you that wealthy, and give back to them, the way they want it.

It's very interesting that you think the best way to give back to the public is through...government discretional spending?

A couple thought experiments:

1) If public sector spending was a good vehicle for increasing the public welfare, why don't people donate money to the USFG over other charities? Surely the Effective Altruism movement would be very interested if this were the case.

2) In 2015, the USFG spent $229 Billion on interest on all of the debts it owes, over 6% of its total budget. What makes you think paying off interest of the bad decisions of the legislative branch takes priority over any good-will private sector philanthropy, no matter how ego-fueled?

<em>And as a bonus, these are people with demonstrated success in their ventures...</em>

And no experience in medicine, famine relief, climate science or any of a hundred other areas.

And let's remember that plenty of billionaires are climate change deniers, sitting at the center of dysfunctional corporate hierarchies full of infighting, posturing, and suspect expense accounts.

Honest question: do you think the world would be better off if 100% of the budget of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation went straight to the US Federal Government instead?

Sure, Bill Gates didn't start off with that experience. But from what I have seen of the foundation, I believe they are more effective in bettering the world, dollar for dollar, than the US Government.

The Gates Foundation's purpose is "bettering the world". The US Government's purpose is "bettering the US". With that in mind, it's not particularly suprising that the Gates Foundation would be better at your given task.

So the complaint now is that the money is going to where it's most needed rather than to the US specifically? This argument is sounding less like an argument for justice and fairness and more like simple jealousy.

Thats based on the false assumption that money comes from nothing and that we live in this perfect system where we deserve the money we earn and those that don't earn it don't deserve it.

Mark, for example, was born, lived, grew up, went to school, started a business, etc, etc in the US and benefited from all of the things the US offers. You owe a lot to your government, and subsequently the 'tax payers', than you statement seems to suggest. Also the idea that Mark deserves all of his money because he earned it is also false. There are millions of people that have worked harder to succeed in life than Mark. Mark just got lucky. I don't mean to diminish his accomplishments, but luck plays a large role with any individuals success. That is one of the founding reasons for proper wealth redistribution.

I certainly agree with progressive taxation, and that Mark owes a lot to his upbringing, and that luck plays a role. I was reacting to the claim that wealthy people have "undue influence on public spending." They should have outsized influence based on their outsized success.

I find it hard to argue that you owe anyone else in the U.S. because everyone receives similar benefits. Mark didn't receive "extra" benefits above and beyond any other U.S. citizen. In fact, the richer you are the less you benefit typically.

So then it would be just as likely that a Mark should emerge from a poor third world country, right?

When I was younger I had the naive opinion that my successes were my own doing. As I got older my opinion changed. Yes, I had something to do with it, absolutely. But a lot of it was being the right person in the right place at the right time.

There is a reason that I log in as luckydude.

I did not say his successes were his own doing. I was only commenting on the fact that it was implied he "owes" taxpayers. Sure he may owe a lot to other people, but to taxpayers in general? not so much in my opinion.

One would hope the rich receive less benefits. You don't owe it directly to the tax payers, you owe it to your country as a whole. Again money does not come from nothing(well sort of, but what it represents lol). To think money you earn is money you deserve is very entitled and inaccurate.

Mark did receive extra benefits, he came from a family that was at the very least middle class or even at the very least American. This put him at a greater advantage then most of the rest of the country/world, an advantage he never earned from hard-work. It was just luck.

How is that "fair", well its not and the world is not "fair". That's why we have taxes, with the hopes they preform some for of wealth redistribution. Sadly wealth redistribution in the US is frowned upon and often not very well done.

> create something worth $300B out of nothing

Out of nothing? Would Zuckerburg been able to create Facebook if he was born and raised to subsistence farmers in Afghanistan, and lived his adult life in Sheberghan?

The fact is, people living in advanced nations have had huge investments made in them by their communities/nations in the form of clean water, schools, roads, rule of law and a thousand other things. Citizen's are morally obligated to pay a fair amount of tax, and because Zuckerburg has been widely successful, he should contribute much more that the average joe, even if he doesn't consume enough for it to be "fair".

I agree with that, but if successful entrepreneurs want to do charitable works themselves, I think they should have that freedom -- if not tax-free, then certainly at a much lower tax than if they were buying a fleet of private jets.

"...the people who create something worth $300B out of nothing..."

This is a false statement. I applaud people who succeed in their businesses but accruation of lots of capital to a few people is not only due to them but due to the existing society around them. Infrastructure which facilitates logistics and enables a pool of workforce, stable civil society, etc. Not to talk about the economic system which makes financial transactions cheap and predictable.

If you don't like the idea of redistribution, let's think it like this: from the point of view of personal wealth, the economy is like a giant casino where the games are more complicated but most people actually win - and some people win a lot. Taxes can be thought as a fee for the right to participate in the fun and games.

Let us not forget the Internet and many of the other technologies that make Facebook possible are a product of government investment (e.g. DARPA).

The easy fix would be to strip the charities of their tax-free status. That does have some unintended consequences though.

Eh, but you're assuming that money to charities is always a good thing. There are a) some pretty terrible charities out there and b) some patently fake charities that are designed as money laundering schemes.

The tax code works because it was written by people who had huge amounts of wealth and were pissed that the federal government (the People of the U.S.) created an income tax.

No other developed country has such crazy laws regarding charity donations as the U.S.

So why is everyone already assuming Mark's charity is going to be one of the terrible ones? I don't see why he wouldn't give an honest shot at improving the world, as a young idealist. Maybe he won't do a great job at it, but people should reserve judgement til then.

I'd say you're making the assumption that it will be used for good, when so many charities are indeed used for tax evasion (and other more nefarious purposes). When you condition these probabilities on how most charities actually operate, and on Zuckerberg's past behaviour, a high level of cynicism proves to be the rational position.

Mark hasn't been improving the Internet so far (actually FB made it worse in numerous ways), so why do you think he has any incentive to improve the world as a whole ?

Facebook is abusive of people's personal privacy, even though it is generally an effective tool for improving people's (layperson's?) communication.

So, it's probably a better idea to approach it with a cynical perspective instead of an optimistic (naive?) one. It could turn out to not be estate-tax evasion... however it seems unlikely.

> No other developed country has such crazy laws regarding charity donations as the U.S.

Wrong. France has the "Association Loi 1901" law and it's pretty much the same thing, a money laundering scheme for most of the organizations benefiting from it - most of the time politicians using public money to finance such organizations where they put their friends and families in charge.

This kind of things has no borders.

I've wondered if the charity Claire Underwood works at in House of Cards was intended to be a commentary on this sort of thing. Claire takes a huge salary from donations by corporations, then Frank spends it. They seem to be intimately involved with San-Corp at every turn but there are lots of questions raised that never get answered. For example it's never explained why so much of the staff was rapidly cut, or why they pivoted to international work. I think they were even present in the whole Russo ordeal where the environmental initiative is replaced by natural gas after that bill fails. At the same time it is never directly implied that the CWI was an outright money laundering scheme.

Well, implicit in this discussion is also the notion that tax revenue is always a good thing. I think both assumptions are poor, but I'd sure take charity over tax revenue any day of the week.

This is not a charity in the tax sense (a 501(c) organization), it's a limited liability company. So if there are tax benefits, I don't think they come from a government policy to increase charitable spending.

I don't understand this comment - You don't have to be a charity to do charitable works, and an LLC can be a charity. Note that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a Foundation (which is not all that different from an LLC without shareholders from a tax+reporting perspective), and does lots of charitable works.

The tax treatment of a charitable foundation (as opposed to an LLC) is very different.

The article linked suggests that they are not giving any money away.

But is it really charity? Unfortunately, the charity exemption is given to many things that aren't very charitable at all, including some that are materially and intentionally bad for society (i.e. many that engage in overtly religious and/or political behavior). I'm willing to give Zuck the benefit of the doubt for being sincere and meaning well, but only time will tell if this is true charity.

The point is that you can justify lower taxes if you have private donations to charities instead of state funding.

Not a charity, it's an LLC investment vehicle.

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