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Only if you're using that foundation as a way to funnel the money to your heirs. The Gates Foundation is spending a lot of that money right now, while Bill is

• kevingadd 13y ago
  Yeah, sorry - I wasn't implying anything bad about Gates, I think he's doing great stuff - it's just unclear to me whether it's possible for someone to use a foundation like that as a tax dodge. I don't know if he represents the average or if he's actually a positive outlier.
  • lutusp 13y ago
    > it's just unclear to me whether it's possible for someone to use a foundation like that as a tax dodge. Only if burning money in your yard counts as a tax dodge. Setting up a foundation doesn't allow the money to be redirected to the donor in any way, and the donor doesn't even get to specify how the money is spent, except in a broad philosophical sense (i.e. "The goal of my foundation is to help education", things like that). > I don't know if he represents the average or if he's actually a positive outlier. Even among well-known philanthropists, Gates is an outlier. His willingness to tackle polio, and his project to redesign condoms to make them more effective, are both wise and daring projects. Unlike smallpox, polio only exhibits symptoms in a small minority of those infected, so it is very difficult to identify, control and eradicate. It's going to be much harder to eradicate polio than it was to eliminate smallpox, the first dramatic pathogen extinction that was based on simple human effort.