I think there’s a common misunderstanding about how tax write-offs work. If you donate x dollars, and your marginal tax rate is t, you end up losing x - xt dollars. That means you have less money than if you didn’t donate, even after accounting for the write-off. Arguments that somebody only donated money for the tax write-off usually don’t make sense.
Possibles exceptions to this include hard-to-value assets like art, where someone could potentially exaggerate the value by at least 1/t to defraud the tax authorities, but this doesn’t seem relevant to donating publicly-traded Microsoft stock. Bill Gates would be richer if he didn’t make these donations.
Possibles exceptions to this include hard-to-value assets like art, where someone could potentially exaggerate the value by at least 1/t to defraud the tax authorities, but this doesn’t seem relevant to donating publicly-traded Microsoft stock. Bill Gates would be richer if he didn’t make these donations.