Vox explains 'How America’s richest donate their money' for tax season

I closed CNBC explains 'Why The IRS Is Still Struggling To Fund The Government' for Tax Day by telling my readers "I plan on following that with another post about taxes, since the tax filing deadline is really April 18th." While the title of How America’s richest donate their money is about charity, it's really about taxes. Don't believe me? Watch.

Billionaires don’t give the same way we do.
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Every year, publications like Forbes release lists detailing the generosity of society’s richest philanthropists. But the raw numbers of their donations don’t tell the whole story of how ultra-wealthy charitable giving tends to work. We took that data and put it on a big chart that highlights exactly how much of each billionaire’s personal wealth is going toward charitable giving.

This video outlines how wealth inequality creates a distorted view of the generosity of America’s billionaires. We examine the causes their money goes to support, like education and public health. And we break down the actual methods they use to move massive amounts of donated money around, like foundations and secretive donor-advised funds.

Measuring wealth and philanthropic giving is difficult and subjective. We relied on Forbes’s specific methodology for our chart, but lists like the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s “The Philanthropy 50” use their own methods.

So, giving to foundations and donor-advised funds gives the donors immediate tax benefits, but delayed benefits to the eventual recipients. I didn't know that before watching this video, but I'm not surprised. I also didn't know that the income levels of people reporting charitable giving had changed over the past 30 years, changing the institutions that benefited from donations. One of the patterns I noted was that the relative contributions of the wealthy jumped in 2018. I wouldn't be surprised if that was a result of the 2017 tax bill, which disincentived itemizing deductions for middle- and low-income Americans, while preserving the utility of itemizing deductions for the wealthy. Vox didn't mention that, but it makes sense to me.

Finally, it's always a good day when I learn something new, even if it's not always pleasing. I hope my readers agree.