No its not clear enough actually, the tax benefits could have also been passed on, so please provide supporting evidence of his personal profit. Otherwise we can continue to assume you are a paranoid skeptic.
I also find the idea that the exceedingly wealthy can effectively buy their way out of our tax system. Even if in this case all the money did actually go to causes of his choosing it's not a just system and I'm saddened you are being down-voted for just having a contrary opinion.
Maybe he didn't want his money going to buy more cluster munitions, depleted uranium bombs, clean water act rollbacks, napalms, etc etc?
I hate taxes as well & under our current "leaders"... seeing that they are putting the entire economy at risk with their military over spending... then I would love to figure out how to maximally avoid taxes as well.
Avoiding taxes does not lead to less military spending. Amazon and GE usually pay less federal taxes than the average US citizen but have plenty of lobbyists shoving money into politicians' pockets, just like most defense contractors.
You're better off fighting the influence of money in politics if you want your taxes to be well spent
Do you have any basis for that belief? It seems equally plausible that he wanted as much as possible going to the foundation in order to optimize its philanthropic potential.
I feel like you’re trying to equate avoiding taxes with self enrichment. That’s true if you avoid taxes to then keep the money. But if you avoid taxes by giving everything to charity, that’s not avoiding taxes anymore: those are deductibles for a reason!
The question is: did he end up keeping more money now, than he would have, had he just kept everything and paid the due taxes? The article seems to suggest that, no, he didn’t.
> “Chuck hates taxes. He believes people can do more with money than governments can,”
For a long time he withheld taxation money that could have gone to education and infrastructure. The fact that he gave money away when it was most convenient to him WHILE NORMAL PEOPLE HAD TO PAY EVERY TIME, ON TIME, does not excuse his despicable behavior.
That's kind of like saying taking a pay cut or working part time is tax avoidance. "Normal people" can also avoid taxes by giving their income to charity if they want.
From reading your posts it seems like you jumped to a conclusion without understanding the situation.
Except that I never said taking a pay cut or working part time were tax avoidance. Also, normal people don't usually set up tax-exempt foundations that hire them as "board members" to "give their money away".
Him having to go to the Bahamas to sign everything away means he profited a lot from tax "optimization".
Clear enough?