[Borodog]

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Buffet is no idiot. He knows the prudent thing to do is to come out favoring higher taxation for the wealthy because it lowers his profile as a target. Then what does he do? Give $37B to a charitable foundation to preclude government attack on the accumulated capital after his death.

Gates has done the exact same thing.

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Gates got the idea from Buffet it's just that Gates set up his foundation and Buffet was persuaded by Gates to contribute. Buffet has been on the record for a long, long time stating that he would donate his fortune to charity stating that his children would not inherit his fortune. I believe that his children will/have received a lot of money from Buffet's ex wife but from Buffet they basically have received all they're going to get (a college education payed for).

Don't see how this is an advantage to Buffet tax wise. Sure he gets to write off his charitable contributions but he doesn't get to spend it either.

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He doesn't want to spend it. He wants to preserve the accumulated capital, and the productive capacity it embodies, because that is the best possible thing you can do for society. If government were to attack that accumulated capital via the estate tax, for example, it would have to be broken up, and all those years of accumulated capital would be converted into consumption via government redistribution, which is really, really damaging to society in the long run.

Gates and Buffet are heros for that $70 or 80B (or whatever it is) charitable foundation. That fund will do an immense amount of good around the world for decades, whereas government would squander it in one week and have nothing to show for it except more damage done.