Which billionaires donate to charity

It would, however, pose its own complications, such as who exactly should get credit for money distributed from foundations that have multiple funders. As these huge sums above make clear, a small change in these methods could very well change our conclusions about billionaire philanthropy. This would all be for naught if philanthropy had a culture of transparency.

Many philanthropists prefer to keep their donations anonymous, and some, like Bezos, seem to bristle at the notion of owing the public any information about their gifts even though it offers tax advantages and can burnish their reputations.

The conclusion may very well be that the wealthiest people in the world donate more to charity than we think. Should there be a wealth tax? What types of charity should be tax-deductible?

And, at a more basic level, does the US economy just plain work? These are policy questions that people disagree on. So the figures and the headlines really matter — at least until the culture and the laws catch up. The list goes on. First off, the amounts involved are tiny relative to the fortunes behind them. Well-publicized philanthropy also conveniently distracts attention from how several of these billionaires are endangering their workers and, by extension, the public.

With online sales surging, Amazon is on a hiring binge. He and his billionaire brother, Ronald, have also helped raise millions for the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation, which they co-chair. The richest real estate mogul in the U. The bulk of his giving is a gift of 20, acres of parkland to Orange County, part of which established the Black Star Canyon Wilderness Park. Since Bren took over the Irvine Company in the s, the firm has designated more than 50, acres of land as open space and protected parkland.

The Oklahoma oil and banking baron is the largest philanthropist in his state. The Kansas native presides over Koch Industries, America's largest private company.

Much of his giving is done through the Charles Koch Foundation, which focuses on education and criminal justice, and the Stand Together Foundation, which focuses on poverty related issues. The widow of industrialist David Koch d. David, former executive vice president of Koch Industries and Charles Koch's younger brother, was also a major donor to his alma maters, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Deerfield Academy.

A pioneer of the modern hedge fund industry, Julian Robertson Jr. Robertson has established a handful of other charitable foundations, including the Tiger Foundation, the Aotearoa and the Blanche and Julian Robertson Family Foundation. While the U.

Critics of the proposal argue that it is punitive and that "billionaires don't need to pay taxes because they already donate. Though hardly a mega-philanthropist, Price has been walking the talk at his own company, telling MarketWatch that when the company's revenue fell by half in the early months of the pandemic, he avoided layoffs by asking his employees to take pay cuts and later paying them back.

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