Don’t just focus on the books, as impactful as that is worldwide. Dollywood is the largest employer in the Pigeon Forge area now. She founded a bald eagle sanctuary in the 90s. Tons of scholarships in Sevier County to help address a dropout rate that was, at the height of her popularity in the 90s, over 30%. Coronavirus research donations and vaccine awareness. AIDS research funding (through a charity album). She helped fund a hospital, helped with wildfire and hurricane relief, so much more.
You might be right to go “well some of those were probably tax writeoffs”, but she clearly took the words and idea of the early country stars she knew like Johnny Cash and decided “all this money and power is worthless unless I help people with it.”
There’s no amount of writeoff that makes donation profitable, compared to simply keeping the money. The exception is when the rich “donate” to “charities” that they then use for their personal benefit. Then they get a writeoff AND full control of the money.
There’s no amount of writeoff that makes donation profitable, compared to simply keeping the money. The exception is when the rich “donate” to “charities” that they then use for their personal benefit. Then they get a writeoff AND full control of the money.
also when said billionaires' charities employ their children who get exhorbitant salaries. I am willing to tell you what and order of magnitude but not who caused... let's say 2/3 of my existential crisis what drove me out of gainful employment and fully into music.
but the short version is it was someone famous that you could guess’s distant relation (and I will not confirm so don’t bother, that’s not the important part of the story. famous people like wine county, that’s where i live), they earned more just from that charity that year than i would or could , ever, in my entire life, (even if i hadn’t decided to devote myself to music. i expected to contribute a high seven figures to our retirement, now i just expect to die) from a charity. they were about the same age I was when I started exercising independence. Chose my first haircut. and i got to do their tax return and see how i could minimize their contribution to society. yaaaaaaaay.
after a good long drink during the lull between busy seasons, I asked myself why i was killing myself for money so i could have fun during my twilight years when i could have fun now and scrape by, and then when our twilight years are here we’re used to scraping by so we can keep doing it. maybe if we’re lucky we might have a comfortable one because who knows what’s guaranteed. even my wife agrees we’re both a hell of a lot happier even if i’m only earning the occasional enchilada platter from a gig. she enjoys telling folk she’s married to a gigging musician more than an accountant. wouldn’t you?
Yeah the bigger concern with tax write-offs for donations is that it allows the wealthy to refuse to pay for what has been democratically decided on and instead put it towards what they want
I mean, kind of? Usually you’re donating to a charity or something to minimize your tax burden or claim a loss.
“Profitable” is kind of a relative term, but if I pay a little bit of nothing for a good stock (for example) and I hold it for a long time, I might have to pay capital gains on like 90 percent of the value of a stock. If I have some more recently purchased stock with a out the same value, what I can do is donate my old stock money that super grew tax free and use it to offset the value of selling a LOT of more recent stock. This puts money in my pocket from the market basically for free.
It is definitely profitable to figure out how to get money from the market that doesn’t require you to pay a quarter of it in taxes up front. If the weight is “how much I put in” vs “how much I took out” you can definitely make profitable tax write-offs.
if you are paying charitable contributions solely to reclaim income taxes your accountant, even a stupid one, is going to beat you upside the head with a newspaper and squirt you with a spray bottle shouting NO! BAD CLIENT! BAD! until you stop. A billionaire is recovering 40%ish of that. maybe 35%ish i haven’t prepared any taxes but my own in a hot minute. one of us normies, even less. us normies usually don’t even itemize anymore.
we’ve got family out in nashville suburbs who were hoping to land a job there and live out my aunt’s (their great aunt’s) teardrop next summer. now i don’t know what’ll happen. i hope it keeps running the same
Don’t just focus on the books, as impactful as that is worldwide. Dollywood is the largest employer in the Pigeon Forge area now. She founded a bald eagle sanctuary in the 90s. Tons of scholarships in Sevier County to help address a dropout rate that was, at the height of her popularity in the 90s, over 30%. Coronavirus research donations and vaccine awareness. AIDS research funding (through a charity album). She helped fund a hospital, helped with wildfire and hurricane relief, so much more.
You might be right to go “well some of those were probably tax writeoffs”, but she clearly took the words and idea of the early country stars she knew like Johnny Cash and decided “all this money and power is worthless unless I help people with it.”
There’s no amount of writeoff that makes donation profitable, compared to simply keeping the money. The exception is when the rich “donate” to “charities” that they then use for their personal benefit. Then they get a writeoff AND full control of the money.
This isn’t that.
also when said billionaires' charities employ their children who get exhorbitant salaries. I am willing to tell you what and order of magnitude but not who caused... let's say 2/3 of my existential crisis what drove me out of gainful employment and fully into music.
but the short version is it was someone famous that you could guess’s distant relation (and I will not confirm so don’t bother, that’s not the important part of the story. famous people like wine county, that’s where i live), they earned more just from that charity that year than i would or could , ever, in my entire life, (even if i hadn’t decided to devote myself to music. i expected to contribute a high seven figures to our retirement, now i just expect to die) from a charity. they were about the same age I was when I started exercising independence. Chose my first haircut. and i got to do their tax return and see how i could minimize their contribution to society. yaaaaaaaay.
after a good long drink during the lull between busy seasons, I asked myself why i was killing myself for money so i could have fun during my twilight years when i could have fun now and scrape by, and then when our twilight years are here we’re used to scraping by so we can keep doing it. maybe if we’re lucky we might have a comfortable one because who knows what’s guaranteed. even my wife agrees we’re both a hell of a lot happier even if i’m only earning the occasional enchilada platter from a gig. she enjoys telling folk she’s married to a gigging musician more than an accountant. wouldn’t you?
Yeah the bigger concern with tax write-offs for donations is that it allows the wealthy to refuse to pay for what has been democratically decided on and instead put it towards what they want
I mean, kind of? Usually you’re donating to a charity or something to minimize your tax burden or claim a loss.
“Profitable” is kind of a relative term, but if I pay a little bit of nothing for a good stock (for example) and I hold it for a long time, I might have to pay capital gains on like 90 percent of the value of a stock. If I have some more recently purchased stock with a out the same value, what I can do is donate my old stock money that super grew tax free and use it to offset the value of selling a LOT of more recent stock. This puts money in my pocket from the market basically for free.
It is definitely profitable to figure out how to get money from the market that doesn’t require you to pay a quarter of it in taxes up front. If the weight is “how much I put in” vs “how much I took out” you can definitely make profitable tax write-offs.
if you are paying charitable contributions solely to reclaim income taxes your accountant, even a stupid one, is going to beat you upside the head with a newspaper and squirt you with a spray bottle shouting NO! BAD CLIENT! BAD! until you stop. A billionaire is recovering 40%ish of that. maybe 35%ish i haven’t prepared any taxes but my own in a hot minute. one of us normies, even less. us normies usually don’t even itemize anymore.
Also, all of her Dollywood employees get their college paid for too. I came across that when our son was looking for a summer job.
we’ve got family out in nashville suburbs who were hoping to land a job there and live out my aunt’s (their great aunt’s) teardrop next summer. now i don’t know what’ll happen. i hope it keeps running the same
She’s helped Tennessee so much. I’m hoping to visit Dollywood next year, I’d much rather support that than give Disney more money.
Heck, if every billionaire did this many tax writeoffs to real charities, not their own personal foundations, maybe the world would be a better place.