According to IT House citing the New York Times, Musk, the founder of companies such as Tesla and SpaceX, has recently aroused doubts about the operation of his Musk Charitable Foundation.
It is reported that Musk’s SpaceX company is located in Cameron County, a very backward economy in southern Texas. Before this, Musk had never made any donation records to Cameron County until the SpaceX incident 3 years ago. A rocket explosion left Cameron County in chaos.
Just 82 minutes after the rocket explosion, the Musk Charitable Foundation immediately donated US$30 million to Cameron County, saying it was used to fund the construction of Brownsville City Center and schools in Cameron County.
As the former world’s richest man, Musk’s charitable foundation should be of such a scale that it can have a huge social impact. Just like Bill Gates’s foundation is dedicated to improving the medical and health conditions in Africa, Wal-Mart’s boss behind the scenes is Wal-Mart. The Newton family's philanthropic foundation is dedicated to improving education in the United States.
Compared with them, Musk's charitable foundation is more like a transfer of profits, and it is mainly for Musk himself and the company to make profits and enjoy huge tax breaks from the US government. In layman's terms, it's tax avoidance.
This suspicion is actually not without reason.
In the past four years, Musk has donated stocks worth more than US$7 billion (approximately 50.4 billion yuan) to charitable foundations, making the Musk Charitable Foundation one of the largest charitable foundations in the United States. Generally speaking, a charitable foundation will hire someone to take care of it. It is actually a non-profit organization.
But the Musk Charitable Foundation is completely different, because the foundation does not hire any staff. The board of directors of the 50 billion charitable foundation only has Musk and two volunteers, and one of the volunteers every week The average working time is only 6 minutes!
6 minutes can do? Not even enough time to sweep and mop the floor.
According to the records of the Musk Foundation two years ago, the foundation donated US$160 million to the outside world that year, which was less than the US$394 million stipulated by US law, ranking fourth from the bottom among all charitable foundations in the United States.
Although any law in the United States forces American wealthy people to establish charitable foundations, Musk himself has always stated to the outside world that his business companies are the way to improve the world. However, since Musk has established a charitable foundation as a non-profit organization and has enjoyed US tax deductions, US law will require the Musk Charitable Foundation to truly serve the American public and prevent the foundation from becoming a tool for personal profit-making.
However, according to data released by the Musk Charitable Foundation, about half of the foundation's donations are actually related to Musk himself, his employees, and his companies.
For example, the Musk Charitable Foundation once provided $55 million to SpaceX customers, which was used to help Musk fulfill his charitable donation commitments. In addition, Musk has also provided donations to two other schools closely related to Musk's companies. One of the schools is located on the campus of the SpaceX factory, and the other is located at the residence of Musk's employees. Benjamin Soskis, a charity researcher at the
urban institute, said that Musk likes to establish a maverick image to the public, but his image in terms of charity is lackluster. The contrast is huge.
It is worth mentioning that the United States is a country that attaches great importance to taxation. In order to avoid taxes, almost every wealthy American will do everything possible.
The main reason why the United States values taxation is to maintain the operation of the U.S. government and provide public services. By collecting taxes, the U.S. government is able to raise funds to pay for public sector salaries, infrastructure, education, health care, defense, and other public services.
Tax revenues are also used to recover the national debt, promote economic growth, reduce social inequality, and support social welfare programs. In addition, taxes can also be used to regulate the economy, affecting personal consumption and corporate investment through adjustments in tax rates, in order to promote economic stability and growth.
The tax system in the United States is relatively complex, including personal income tax, corporate income tax, consumption tax and other types of taxes. The formulation of tax policy is also one of the important tasks of the U.S. government. The U.S. government will adjust tax policy according to the needs of the country and economic conditions to achieve economic and social goals.
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