15 Years of Billionaires’ Promises — “Gift Pledge&#8...

Inspired in part by Duty Free Shoppers and General Atlantic Partners leader Chuck Feeney, the reluctant billionaire who advocated “giving while living” and rigorously gave away over $8 billion in his lifetime, and trading his billionaire status for a modest and simpler life, the “Giving Pledge“, commitment by over 200 billionaires to donate much or all of their wealth to charity, celebrates 15 years this year. Bella DeVaan, Associate Director of Charity Reform at the Institute for Policy Studies, recently co-authored a report “Giving Pledge at 15“. In that report, the investigators tracked those donors, their wealth, and their donations to-date — finding that the increase in wealth far exceeded the donations by the subscribers. As an example, Zuckerberg’s wealth has increased by $174 billion in the past 15 years, but his donations total only $10B. Given the fact that charitable donations are tax-deductible and basically underwritten by taxpayers, the reports suggests that taxing the wealth of billionaires would be a better mechanism to solve some of the inequity.

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