> Given the lack of taxes, Americans have effectively subsidized this charity. This is a common but bad take. Firstly, there are a lot of taxes still involved

> Given the lack of taxes, Americans have effectively subsidized this charity. This is a common but bad take. Firstly, there are a lot of taxes still involved. The Gates foundation still pays salary tax and sales tax and property tax and etc. More importantly, had the funding remained parked in a savings account or stock portfolio without being realized, it would have been completely dead to the economy and untaxed. So there's probably a net positive to taxpayers to give people ways to unload their assets. > we haven’t gotten anything particularly valuable out of the gates foundation There could be an argument that the 501(c) tax code is too generous, but I don't think people are probably thinking through the implications of "qualifying" non-profits. If you made every non-profit prove that they were creating value, and also make them subject to taxation on all contributions, you would be effectively wiping out things like open-source software projects or Wikipedia, let alone your normal NGOs and community charities.