Warren Buffett Donates $2 Billion In Berkshire Hathaway Shares To Charities

DealBook:

Warren Buffett has given away 512,169 Class B shares of Berkshire Hathaway stock to three charitable foundations, in keeping with his plan to give away the bulk of his fortune, The Associated Press reported.

The shares were worth $3,999 each, more than $2.05 billion total, at the close of trading July 1, the day Mr. Buffett transferred their ownership.

Most of the shares went to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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Comments

[bobbyvassallo]

Mr. Buffet and other Great Givers should humble all of us. Future generations will continue to benefit from what these men have done. Go to bobby vassallo .org and read other information on the great givers of our time.
http://bobbyvassallo.org

[NABNYC]

Let's say he originally paid $1.00 per share, and held them a long time, and they're now worth $101.00 per share. He owes taxes on $100 per share. This "gift" allows him to not pay taxes, which is the entire purpose of these privately-owned and operated charities, such as the Gates one. And he didn't really give the stocks away to charities -- he gave them to his good friend Bill Gates to put into his "charity" and use for whatever purposes he deems appropriate. For example, if Bill decides that it is in his own best interests to get every schoolchild in India a computer in the classroom fully stocked with only Microsoft software, so they will be lifelong users, he can say that's charity.

This entire Gates/Buff­ett/Clinto­n private charity setup is a scam. It is designed solely for the purpose of letting rich people avoid taxes, but keep their money (by putting it into a separate account labeled "charity"). I believe the IRS regs are that as long as they give away 5% of the original principal per year, the charity is legit and they don't have to pay taxes on all that money they earned. 5%/year is less than the money would earn in conservative investments so, in other words, they keep their own money. And you watch: in time, Congress will pass a law letting them take their money back out of the charity. Just watch.

[TrevorAlan]

Well, he's avoiding taxes on money he no longer has a personal benefit from. (oh, and each share is worth something like $100,000, not $100)

Yes some giving can be selfinsh (the Bush family giving money that must be spent on loser Neil bush' useless school software), but I beleive the Gates foundation was building roads or handing out mosquito nets in Africa, or something else that Microsoft is not going to profit from.

yes this can be misused, but do you really want to tax all charitible donations? part of the point of inheritance tax was to get rich people to give away much of their fortunes.

[NABNYC]

If Buffet or Gates wanted to give away their money, don't you think they could? Red Cross, Unicef, Habitat, Doctors without Borders?

They don't want to give away their money. They want to keep their money, and to get even more. By setting up "private" charities, owned by them, they just transfer money from one account to the other, call it a donation, and avoid taxes. They are taking their massive wealth and essentially creating vulture funds that they will use to acquire more money. Don't buy into the snow job, because that's all it is.

We should not have tax deductions for charitable donations. Let people pay taxes, and we, as a nation, can collectively decide how to use that money. Why let Gates avoid paying taxes in the U.S. and taking that tax money and using it to buy computers for kids in Africa. Pay your taxes first. Then if you want to buy computers, do so. If these people were motivated by a charitable impulse, they'd give their money to charities instead of keeping it in their "personal" charity.

If Buffett or Gates really wanted to "get away" their money, they could go to any third world country and hire locals to build sanitation, water, housing, schools, and businesses. We don't hear about that, do we? Just a little sick kid here and there with a photo op, but most of the money stays under Gates' tight control.

[TrevorAlan]

Oh, sorry, class B shares, those are only worth about $1,400 each.

[jrb35]

You know nothing about charity foundations. You don't get to earn a profit from them. The growth in the foundation's investments remain within the foundation and can't be payed back to the donor. The reason one might want to only give 5% of the foundation a year is so that the investment grows and lasts. If you put $100 million into a foundation, you could give it all away at once and do $100 million worth of good in one year. Or, if you're smart, you could invest it wisely, give 5% a year and you'll have a foundation that will give away several hundred million dollars cumulatively for decades. Get it? Mr. Buffett is the smartest investor in the world and he chose to give his billions to the Gates foundation because it was the best run foundation in the world. His donation will be well invested and will grow and continue to do great work for the entire 21st century rather than just for 2008. Which do you think is a smarter way to give?