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For you (or other folks) working in tech and giving to charity, apart from corporate match, another couple pieces of advice are to consider a Donor Advised Fund

For you (or other folks) working in tech and giving to charity, apart from corporate match, another couple pieces of advice are to consider a Donor Advised Fund. They are really easy to set up, and then you get some benefits, like the ability to "bunch" your donations (can help with tax deductions) or donate appreciated investments (like RSUs) without paying capital gains tax.

wing-_-nuts 1y ago
Yep, I've considered a DAF and donating stock, but it wouldn't be eligible for my employer match.
- dmoy 1y ago
  Depends on the employer I guess. Some companies will do match even for DAF distributions (not the initial transfer obviously)
9rx 1y ago
> without paying capital gains tax. It's a funny day when you're feeling charitable, but go out of your way to avoid helping the entity that should be the ideal charitable recipient.
- monooso 1y ago
  That assumes a lot about the current administration.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - gambiting 1y ago
    It might be surprising, but there are charitable people outside of USA too. I do consider paying taxes the best way to help those in need, but I don't live in the US personally.
  - 9rx 1y ago
    Presumably the current administration is what has made the day funny (in a sad way).
  - dingnuts 1y ago
    It assumes a lot about future administrations too. When Obama was in office I complained a lot about the Executive branch consolidating power and using executive orders, and the Democrats were fine with it because he was a "good" administration. But guess what? If you give too much power to a position, people who want to abuse the power will try to get themselves there. I wasn't upset that Obama was consolidating power because I thought Obama would abuse it. I'm upset that he consolidated power and then left it to whoever would come next, and then has the gall to be surprised that consolidating power under the Executive would undermine the power of the Legislature the moment a President who was willing to abuse said power was sworn in. We're cooked because of the fucking team sports. Both parties have had the chance to reign in the Executive and neither has the balls to use it against their own guy
    - cyberax 1y ago
      Obama didn't "consolidate power", he issued fewer EO than Bush (276 vs. 291). Trump has issued 142 just within these 100 days.
      - fallingknife 1y ago
        Number of EOs issued is a poor measure of centralization of power. Most exercise of executive power these days don't even require an EO, just a decree from one of the executive agencies. And looking at Trump vs Obama is myopic. This process has been going on continuously since at least the FDR admin.
        cyberax 1y ago
        No, it was not. If you look at the EOs by president, they were fairly stable or even trending down until Trump: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_federal_executive_orders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_federal_... Even in qualitative terms, the "consolidation" was incorrect. Congress abdicated its responsibilities, and the Federal agencies picked up the slack. They're not controlled _centrally_, it's not like Obama was ordering agencies to write particular rules. We now see what the central consolidated control actually looks like.
  - ToValueFunfetti 1y ago
    Assumes a lot about every administration. I don't see how anyone can look at what the US Government has done and failed to do over the last decades and call it the ideal charitable recipient. Even when it's doing the right things, it wastes enormous amounts of money to do so and the primary beneficiary is one of the wealthiest populations in the world. Of course, you wouldn't expect them to be the ideal charity; they are explicitly not a charity. Anyone who is actually trying to be a charity should have little trouble using funds more charitably than any government in the world.
- wing-_-nuts 1y ago
  If that entity used my tax dollars wisely (looking at nordic countries), yes I agree paying taxes is superior. I have no interest in contributing more towards our 1T/yr defense budget or subsidizing oil and gas.
  - vinceguidry 1y ago
    The sovereign wealth funds of the Nordic countries weren't built with tax dollars, but rather with oil revenue. We could do the same thing here if there were political appetite for holding energy companies responsible and the wealth they produce as belonging to the people living on the land the resources are coming out of. We're doing better now than we were 50 years ago, but the Nords are light years ahead.
    - Nullabillity 1y ago
      The oil fund isn't a Nordic Thing™, it's norwegian. We in the rest of the nordics don't even have (significant amounts of) oil.
      - pnw 1y ago
        Yes, Denmark, Sweden and Finland combined don't even have 20% of the Norwegian fund. Norway is basically the Saudi Arabia of Europe.
        lillecarl 1y ago
        Norway is basically anything but the Saudi Arabia of Europe. The ONLY thing that is similar is that they both have oil and natural gas in their territory. It's a gross comparison.
        throwawaymaths 1y ago
        Well they do both have monarchs! Though the royal palace in Oslo is a public park. As I was strolling the park, to my surprise I attended a quick fanfare as the king left his palace and his driver (I presume) almost ran over a dumb kid that darted in front of the royal sedan. then at the end of the royal avenue, at the foot of the most glorious mathematician sculpture, the royal sedan turned a corner directly into rush hour traffic, which his highness had to endure just like the rest of us commoners.
- vasco 1y ago
  The state is never going to be as agile as private people engaging on topics they are passionate about on their private time.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - 9rx 1y ago
    A group of people engaging in topics they are passionate about in their private time is what a state is. Perhaps what you are trying to say is that you only want to help out your friends?
    - psunavy03 1y ago
      Yeah, no. A government is not "a group of people engaging in topics they are passionate about." A government is an entity with authority to tell you what you have to do, and if you don't do it, eventually people with guns will show up at your door and take you to jail.
      - 9rx 1y ago
        > A government is an entity with authority to tell you what you have to do If it is authoritarian, perhaps, but even that is still a matter of a group of people. Most seem to believe that government should be democratic. You may not find yourself in a democratic state, but that would only continue to contribute to what makes the day funny. Perhaps you didn't read the entire thread and are posting this without understanding the full context under which it is taking place?
        sswatson 1y ago
        No, all governments have the authority to tell people what to do. Some governments operate within a legal framework that limits that authority in many ways, but if an organization has no authority over the people who live in a given area then it isn't a government.
- knowitnone 1y ago
  It's OK to do both and who is this ideal charitable recipient you are talking about? You mean the one that takes your money and does whatever it wants with it?
  - njdas 1y ago
    [flagged]
- njdas 1y ago
  [dead]
- toast0 1y ago
  The state goes out of their way to encourage it. Let's say you just won the startup lottery and you've got a significant amount of now tradable stock. Some of which was early exercised and the cost basis is effectively zero. Some of which was RSUs or non-qualified options and you owe ordinary income. And that you're way over into the top tax brackets. If your zero cost basis stock is Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS), there's a very nice discount on federal capital gains, so you might not need to do the rest of the stuff. Otherwise, if you donate your apprechiated zero basis stock, you get to save federal capital gains of 20% + 3.8% net investment income. Plus it offsets against your ordinary income that's 37%. So that's a 60.8% discount on being charitable for the feds. If you live in California, capital gains are regular income, so you're saving 13.3% because the capital gains go away and offsetting 13.3% on your ordinary income, so your total discount is 87.4%. In other words, your difference in cash after taxes for selling $1M of zero basis stock or donating $1M of zero basis stock is $126k. When the government is telling you it only costs $126k to give a charity $1M, it's pretty compelling. The math used to be different, when you'd get credit for state taxes on the federal return, but that was many years ago now.
  - waynesonfire 1y ago
    Explains why there is a non-profit writing sudo in Rust recently featured on HN.
  - jorvi 1y ago
    That is not their argument. You lowering your tax rate and giving that money to charity isn't magicking more money into the world, it is just a different allocation. The government's tax income is allocated by the masses (in theory anyway). It is fair and dispassionate. Philanthropy / charity is picking winners and losers based on your personal whims, and for many it is about gaining social capital.
    - zozbot234 1y ago
      > You lowering your tax rate and giving that money to charity isn't magicking more money into the world, it is just a different allocation. This is only ever true if you assume that government tax spending is 100% efficient, with nary a fraction of a cent being wasted. I don't think that's a safe assumption.
- didgetmaster 1y ago
  Perhaps the government 'should' be the ideal charitable entity; but it most definitely is not. The waste, fraud, and abuse that runs rampant throughout the government tells us that the powerful often use taxpayer dollars as their own slush fund. Sure the government does much to relieve the suffering of people around the globe; but it could do far more with substantially less.
  - mmooss 1y ago
    > The waste, fraud, and abuse that runs rampant throughout the government tells us that the powerful often use taxpayer dollars as their own slush fund. I don't know that it's worse than any other institution? At least voters can remove the corrupt, and they are prosecuted. Are you saying these uber-wealthy and CEOs aren't just as corrupt or worse?
    - didgetmaster 1y ago
      What I am saying is that I have a choice whether my money goes to a corporation or to a charity. I don't get to choose whether I pay taxes or not. More often than not, corruption in government does not result in the perpetrator being prosecuted or even removed from office. I am amazed at all the people who are so sure that corporations and/or wealthy investors are corrupt, but give big government a pass. As if the same types of people don't run both.
      - 9rx 1y ago
        > but give big government a pass. Its probably not so much that government gets a pass as much as government is the organization that, by virtue of being a citizen, they own and control, so when things go wrong it is their own fault, and they really don't want to accept blame for their own faults. They would have to ask "How did I manage to fuck this up?", which is a hard question for most people to ask themselves. When it is distinctly someone else's organization it's much easier to throw pointless shade to make one feel better about their own failings.
      - mmooss 1y ago
- Ozzie_osman 1y ago
  So, there is a limit to these deductions, meaning, the government is still usually getting the lion's share of most people's taxes (and, generally, I think 50% of your income is the max you can deduct). I think there is value to letting people allocate some percentage of their income directly to causes they are passionate about. Even if you assume the government is efficient and not bloated, and benevolent, this lets people contribute to causes without waiting for political consensus, or to smaller causes that would not be on the government's radar (yet) or ever. It's more pluralistic. It lets smaller causes bloom. It keeps me civically engaged. On a personal note, I do take issue with the amounts spent on "defense" (which is often bombing people or threatening to directly or indirectly), and would rather help folks than bomb other folks.
Zaheer 1y ago
https://charityvest.org/ https://charityvest.org/ is a great modern DAF tool. I use it to get 1 single charity receipt at the end of the year and track my giving.
- newfocogi 1y ago
  Another happy CharityVest user here. I recommend it to everyone I talk to when DAFs are remotely relevant to the conversation.
MattSayar 1y ago
Money managing tools like Betterment also have native UI features to donate investments to charities as well
nonce42 1y ago
Agree on the Donor Advised Fund (I use Fidelity). If you have highly-appreciated stock, you definitely should look into a DAF. Another benefit is that it is extremely easy to donate to a charity; click and submit and you don't have to worry about paperwork and putting each donation down on your taxes.

wing-_-nuts 1y ago

Yep, I've considered a DAF and donating stock, but it wouldn't be eligible for my employer match.

dmoy 1y ago
Depends on the employer I guess. Some companies will do match even for DAF distributions (not the initial transfer obviously)

9rx 1y ago

> without paying capital gains tax. It's a funny day when you're feeling charitable, but go out of your way to avoid helping the entity that should be the ideal charitable recipient.

monooso 1y ago
That assumes a lot about the current administration.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- gambiting 1y ago
  It might be surprising, but there are charitable people outside of USA too. I do consider paying taxes the best way to help those in need, but I don't live in the US personally.
- 9rx 1y ago
  Presumably the current administration is what has made the day funny (in a sad way).
- dingnuts 1y ago
  It assumes a lot about future administrations too. When Obama was in office I complained a lot about the Executive branch consolidating power and using executive orders, and the Democrats were fine with it because he was a "good" administration. But guess what? If you give too much power to a position, people who want to abuse the power will try to get themselves there. I wasn't upset that Obama was consolidating power because I thought Obama would abuse it. I'm upset that he consolidated power and then left it to whoever would come next, and then has the gall to be surprised that consolidating power under the Executive would undermine the power of the Legislature the moment a President who was willing to abuse said power was sworn in. We're cooked because of the fucking team sports. Both parties have had the chance to reign in the Executive and neither has the balls to use it against their own guy
  - cyberax 1y ago
    Obama didn't "consolidate power", he issued fewer EO than Bush (276 vs. 291). Trump has issued 142 just within these 100 days.
    - fallingknife 1y ago
      Number of EOs issued is a poor measure of centralization of power. Most exercise of executive power these days don't even require an EO, just a decree from one of the executive agencies. And looking at Trump vs Obama is myopic. This process has been going on continuously since at least the FDR admin.
      - cyberax 1y ago
        No, it was not. If you look at the EOs by president, they were fairly stable or even trending down until Trump: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_federal_executive_orders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_federal_... Even in qualitative terms, the "consolidation" was incorrect. Congress abdicated its responsibilities, and the Federal agencies picked up the slack. They're not controlled _centrally_, it's not like Obama was ordering agencies to write particular rules. We now see what the central consolidated control actually looks like.
- ToValueFunfetti 1y ago
  Assumes a lot about every administration. I don't see how anyone can look at what the US Government has done and failed to do over the last decades and call it the ideal charitable recipient. Even when it's doing the right things, it wastes enormous amounts of money to do so and the primary beneficiary is one of the wealthiest populations in the world. Of course, you wouldn't expect them to be the ideal charity; they are explicitly not a charity. Anyone who is actually trying to be a charity should have little trouble using funds more charitably than any government in the world.
wing-_-nuts 1y ago
If that entity used my tax dollars wisely (looking at nordic countries), yes I agree paying taxes is superior. I have no interest in contributing more towards our 1T/yr defense budget or subsidizing oil and gas.
- vinceguidry 1y ago
  The sovereign wealth funds of the Nordic countries weren't built with tax dollars, but rather with oil revenue. We could do the same thing here if there were political appetite for holding energy companies responsible and the wealth they produce as belonging to the people living on the land the resources are coming out of. We're doing better now than we were 50 years ago, but the Nords are light years ahead.
  - Nullabillity 1y ago
    The oil fund isn't a Nordic Thing™, it's norwegian. We in the rest of the nordics don't even have (significant amounts of) oil.
    - pnw 1y ago
      Yes, Denmark, Sweden and Finland combined don't even have 20% of the Norwegian fund. Norway is basically the Saudi Arabia of Europe.
      - lillecarl 1y ago
        Norway is basically anything but the Saudi Arabia of Europe. The ONLY thing that is similar is that they both have oil and natural gas in their territory. It's a gross comparison.
        throwawaymaths 1y ago
        Well they do both have monarchs! Though the royal palace in Oslo is a public park. As I was strolling the park, to my surprise I attended a quick fanfare as the king left his palace and his driver (I presume) almost ran over a dumb kid that darted in front of the royal sedan. then at the end of the royal avenue, at the foot of the most glorious mathematician sculpture, the royal sedan turned a corner directly into rush hour traffic, which his highness had to endure just like the rest of us commoners.
vasco 1y ago
The state is never going to be as agile as private people engaging on topics they are passionate about on their private time.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- 9rx 1y ago
  A group of people engaging in topics they are passionate about in their private time is what a state is. Perhaps what you are trying to say is that you only want to help out your friends?
  - psunavy03 1y ago
    Yeah, no. A government is not "a group of people engaging in topics they are passionate about." A government is an entity with authority to tell you what you have to do, and if you don't do it, eventually people with guns will show up at your door and take you to jail.
    - 9rx 1y ago
      > A government is an entity with authority to tell you what you have to do If it is authoritarian, perhaps, but even that is still a matter of a group of people. Most seem to believe that government should be democratic. You may not find yourself in a democratic state, but that would only continue to contribute to what makes the day funny. Perhaps you didn't read the entire thread and are posting this without understanding the full context under which it is taking place?
      - sswatson 1y ago
        No, all governments have the authority to tell people what to do. Some governments operate within a legal framework that limits that authority in many ways, but if an organization has no authority over the people who live in a given area then it isn't a government.
knowitnone 1y ago
It's OK to do both and who is this ideal charitable recipient you are talking about? You mean the one that takes your money and does whatever it wants with it?
- njdas 1y ago
  [flagged]
njdas 1y ago
[dead]
toast0 1y ago
The state goes out of their way to encourage it. Let's say you just won the startup lottery and you've got a significant amount of now tradable stock. Some of which was early exercised and the cost basis is effectively zero. Some of which was RSUs or non-qualified options and you owe ordinary income. And that you're way over into the top tax brackets. If your zero cost basis stock is Qualified Small Business Stock (QSBS), there's a very nice discount on federal capital gains, so you might not need to do the rest of the stuff. Otherwise, if you donate your apprechiated zero basis stock, you get to save federal capital gains of 20% + 3.8% net investment income. Plus it offsets against your ordinary income that's 37%. So that's a 60.8% discount on being charitable for the feds. If you live in California, capital gains are regular income, so you're saving 13.3% because the capital gains go away and offsetting 13.3% on your ordinary income, so your total discount is 87.4%. In other words, your difference in cash after taxes for selling $1M of zero basis stock or donating $1M of zero basis stock is $126k. When the government is telling you it only costs $126k to give a charity $1M, it's pretty compelling. The math used to be different, when you'd get credit for state taxes on the federal return, but that was many years ago now.
- waynesonfire 1y ago
  Explains why there is a non-profit writing sudo in Rust recently featured on HN.
- jorvi 1y ago
  That is not their argument. You lowering your tax rate and giving that money to charity isn't magicking more money into the world, it is just a different allocation. The government's tax income is allocated by the masses (in theory anyway). It is fair and dispassionate. Philanthropy / charity is picking winners and losers based on your personal whims, and for many it is about gaining social capital.
  - zozbot234 1y ago
    > You lowering your tax rate and giving that money to charity isn't magicking more money into the world, it is just a different allocation. This is only ever true if you assume that government tax spending is 100% efficient, with nary a fraction of a cent being wasted. I don't think that's a safe assumption.
didgetmaster 1y ago
Perhaps the government 'should' be the ideal charitable entity; but it most definitely is not. The waste, fraud, and abuse that runs rampant throughout the government tells us that the powerful often use taxpayer dollars as their own slush fund. Sure the government does much to relieve the suffering of people around the globe; but it could do far more with substantially less.
- mmooss 1y ago
  > The waste, fraud, and abuse that runs rampant throughout the government tells us that the powerful often use taxpayer dollars as their own slush fund. I don't know that it's worse than any other institution? At least voters can remove the corrupt, and they are prosecuted. Are you saying these uber-wealthy and CEOs aren't just as corrupt or worse?
  - didgetmaster 1y ago
    What I am saying is that I have a choice whether my money goes to a corporation or to a charity. I don't get to choose whether I pay taxes or not. More often than not, corruption in government does not result in the perpetrator being prosecuted or even removed from office. I am amazed at all the people who are so sure that corporations and/or wealthy investors are corrupt, but give big government a pass. As if the same types of people don't run both.
    - 9rx 1y ago
      > but give big government a pass. Its probably not so much that government gets a pass as much as government is the organization that, by virtue of being a citizen, they own and control, so when things go wrong it is their own fault, and they really don't want to accept blame for their own faults. They would have to ask "How did I manage to fuck this up?", which is a hard question for most people to ask themselves. When it is distinctly someone else's organization it's much easier to throw pointless shade to make one feel better about their own failings.
    - mmooss 1y ago
Ozzie_osman 1y ago
So, there is a limit to these deductions, meaning, the government is still usually getting the lion's share of most people's taxes (and, generally, I think 50% of your income is the max you can deduct). I think there is value to letting people allocate some percentage of their income directly to causes they are passionate about. Even if you assume the government is efficient and not bloated, and benevolent, this lets people contribute to causes without waiting for political consensus, or to smaller causes that would not be on the government's radar (yet) or ever. It's more pluralistic. It lets smaller causes bloom. It keeps me civically engaged. On a personal note, I do take issue with the amounts spent on "defense" (which is often bombing people or threatening to directly or indirectly), and would rather help folks than bomb other folks.

Zaheer 1y ago

https://charityvest.org/ https://charityvest.org/ is a great modern DAF tool. I use it to get 1 single charity receipt at the end of the year and track my giving.

newfocogi 1y ago
Another happy CharityVest user here. I recommend it to everyone I talk to when DAFs are remotely relevant to the conversation.

MattSayar 1y ago

Money managing tools like Betterment also have native UI features to donate investments to charities as well

nonce42 1y ago

Agree on the Donor Advised Fund (I use Fidelity). If you have highly-appreciated stock, you definitely should look into a DAF. Another benefit is that it is extremely easy to donate to a charity; click and submit and you don't have to worry about paperwork and putting each donation down on your taxes.