We could also consider the case of tax-exempt foundations. These entities only have to give away 5% of their assets each year to maintain their tax exemption. Since they have self-appointing boards, no customers and no shareholders, as long as they have assets they can pretty much do as they please.
The problem is that a competent investment manager can normally earn more than 5% return so tax-exempt foundations have eternal life. I don’t think the founding fathers would have approved of the creation of permanent entities that are free to muck around in society and to attempt to influence elections, like many of the big leftist (er, now “progressive”) foundations do.
The fix is easy- just raise the required payout, maybe to something like 7.5%. This would make foundations mortal. They would gradually spend out their assets and then go out of business. Since foundations hold between 4 and 5% of the GDP in investments, this would boost the amount of money that they payout in salaries and grants thus exposing this money to the normal government predation we call the income tax system. If we do this, we could eventually say bye-bye to the Soros, Tides and Ford Foundation.
Am not really familiar with the pay out percentage but what would be wrong with raising it to somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 to 20%? I seems to me this could very possibly eliminate the scams.