<story><title>The Super-Rich Are Stockpiling Wealth in Black-Box Charities</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-03/the-super-rich-are-stockpiling-wealth-in-black-box-charities</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>andrewla</author><text>This article makes my head hurt, as do so many discussions of charitable giving.  The only reason to give to charity is to benefit that charity.&lt;p&gt;Yes, donors get a deduction for charitable giving.  But they are &lt;i&gt;ALWAYS&lt;/i&gt; better off (in terms of money received in their bank account) by &lt;i&gt;NOT GIVING TO CHARITY&lt;/i&gt;.  There is no way to give money to charity in such a way that you end up with more money than if you had not given to charity.&lt;p&gt;The article points out that there can be some hedging; the assets donated can be managed and management fees paid to a manager before liquidation.  And the particulars of the valuations mean that they can sometimes get a larger deduction than if they sold the asset and then donated the proceeds to charity.  And there are loopholes that allow them to claim a larger deduction than the maximum deduction allowed in the tax code.&lt;p&gt;But no matter what, if they just sold the damn asset and kept the money, they would have more money at the end of the day than they would having gone through this rigmarole.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cowkingdeluxe</author><text>This is not true for assets that change in value and illiquid&amp;#x2F;non-marketable assets.&lt;p&gt;Example:&lt;p&gt;Rich person buys asset for $10m. 3 years later gets it appraised for $75m, knowing full well that no one would actually buy it for that.&lt;p&gt;Rich person then donates the &amp;#x27;$75m&amp;#x27; asset to charity. Rich person made more money via charity rather than trying to sell the asset for $75m.&lt;p&gt;This is a very common strategy.</text></comment>
<story><title>The Super-Rich Are Stockpiling Wealth in Black-Box Charities</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-03/the-super-rich-are-stockpiling-wealth-in-black-box-charities</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>andrewla</author><text>This article makes my head hurt, as do so many discussions of charitable giving.  The only reason to give to charity is to benefit that charity.&lt;p&gt;Yes, donors get a deduction for charitable giving.  But they are &lt;i&gt;ALWAYS&lt;/i&gt; better off (in terms of money received in their bank account) by &lt;i&gt;NOT GIVING TO CHARITY&lt;/i&gt;.  There is no way to give money to charity in such a way that you end up with more money than if you had not given to charity.&lt;p&gt;The article points out that there can be some hedging; the assets donated can be managed and management fees paid to a manager before liquidation.  And the particulars of the valuations mean that they can sometimes get a larger deduction than if they sold the asset and then donated the proceeds to charity.  And there are loopholes that allow them to claim a larger deduction than the maximum deduction allowed in the tax code.&lt;p&gt;But no matter what, if they just sold the damn asset and kept the money, they would have more money at the end of the day than they would having gone through this rigmarole.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>SeanAppleby</author><text>Donor advised funds don&amp;#x27;t have a requirement on any cash outflows and charitable outcomes at any particular time, just that the funds eventually have to be allocated to charitable causes.&lt;p&gt;They can also pay management fees on their capital.&lt;p&gt;You can own the investment fund that is managing its capital. You can then bleed money out through those management fees while only paying capital gains on money when you take a specific amount out as carried interest, avoiding the majority of your capital gains liability on most transactions with most of your capital.&lt;p&gt;I forget where I originally heard this from, but they claimed to have this setup and claimed it was common, and I have since ran it by multiple CPAs and have not yet gotten back an argument for specifically how this would be illegal.</text></comment>