Posted on 08/19/2011 9:33:04 PM PDT by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
Among other newly disclosed positions, the Gates foundation also showed shares of Cemex, the Mexican cement and building-materials company, ....
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
The Edgar link shows the foundation to own 5,813,953 shares of Cemex....hmmmmmm.....
I thought Hugo Chavez seized Cemex assets in Venezuela and nationalized them?
Why would Gates buy that?
Beats me...he has a bigger research staff than I do and he and others like him tend to make money on their investments (somehow). If you try to follow logic in the stock market, you lose anyway. You should know that.
Jobs foundation? WTf?
I guess he knows something we don’t.
The Venezuelan portion of Cemex may be inconsequential to the deal
Isn’t the EPA trying to shut down the cement plants in the US?
They can all call their foundations benefactors for humanity and some may help; however; foundations are the current “hide my wealth from taxes” shelters. That is mostly why these foundations exist.
What is sad is after all these years most of these countries these big humanitarians profess to help are still living in misery.
He has quite a few of these foundations. They are not all bad. It is his money.
I didn’t say they were all bad. I am saying the main reason for a foundations existence is to be a tax haven. I am not quite convinced he or others are using their own money.
I have also heard Gates is zero population. I believe I will pass on someone like him trying to tell me how to live.
Right. Not all bad. They allow him to avoid billions of dollars in federal income and estate taxes, at the same time he and his buddy from Omaha push for higher taxes for the rich (those who make a few hundred thousand dollars a year), and campaign for their commie friends.
I also do not care what he does with his own money. But, I really hate the way he complains that people who make less than 1% of what he makes don’t pay enough taxes, while he avoids many millions of taxes every year, because he has promised to eventually give billions to a foundation that benefits mostly Africans.
He earned his money in the US. If he wants to avoid US taxes by making donations, he should at least make his “donations” to benefit Americans.
What he is doing is worse than the multinational corporations headquartered in the US who pay no US taxes because they “earned” their income in another country and paid lower rate income taxes there.
You don’t like Gates, I understand. I don’t feel that way. He made his money, nobody was forced to comply with standards his organization set up, and now he is spending it. The tax diatribes from any High wealth individual are offensive. You don’t get that kind of wealth without ‘working the system’ as far as taxes go. Some of these guys(and girls) wouldn’t mind a %90 tax rate because their lives and choices have revolved around ways to not pay in general. Get mad or take an income tax course. I chose the latter. It really makes you made at the tax code.
I don’t feel the need to take an income tax course. I am retired now, after a 30 year career as a CPA who was engaged mainly in the income tax “business”.
I also am not “mad”. I just generally dislike the extremely wealthy who want the middle class to support the lower class, while they use all the tax dodges they can find, so they can minimize what they have to pay.
They are probably not doing anything illegal. Whether the laws are wrong is just a matter of opinion.
In my opinion they are doing "wrong" by saying tax rates are too low. If they feel "guilty" for not paying enough money to the IRS, they can pay more! The IRS has a system set up to process extra voluntary payments.
Your point is well founded. They can do. I found myself more angry at the structure of the havens. You don’t seem to share my understanding that someone created this hole/mess.
I also do not approve of the “charitable foundation loopholes”. The donors can get major tax benefits while still controlling the funds for years.
Also, like I mentioned earlier, many of these foundations are set up to benefit people outside the US. I do not agree that a deduction against US taxes should be available for that.
I understand that someone created this mess. It was people exactly like the lawyers who set up Bill Gates’ foundation, and the ones that advised Warren Buffet to avoid US income and estate taxes by contributing to it.
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