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A comment on IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from being developed. Parent comment

Re:IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from bei... by Jochim on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @05:17PM (#25934856)
> In the same way that a 401k is set up for a specific purpose, IKEA's foundation was also set up for a very specific purpose. If anything, the purpose was criticized as being overly narrow, and they recently updated it to be more broad.

Non-profit taxation laws were not set up with the intent of allowing for profit businesses to avoid taxation. That doesn't mean that it wasn't the outcome.

> Edit - To put it another way, there don't seem to be laws restricting investment firms from buying controlling interests in companies to manipulate asset prices/consumer behavior, which to me is far more detrimental than someone who may be pathologically frugal deciding they want to minimize taxes by setting up a complicated corporate structure with a foundation.

The existence of a worse scenario doesn't prevent us dealing with the current one.

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Re:IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from bei... by omgwtfbyobbq on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @05:36PM (#25935083)
That's true, but practically speaking, that's the outcome when for profit company can create a foundation. Kind of like 401k rollovers to an IRA.

The worse scenario doesn't preclude us from addressing less bad scenarios, but I think we should focus more time and effort on that than on reforming the laws around foundations and non-profits, and by we I mean HN readers and the general public.

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Re:IKEA buys 11,000 acres of U.S. forest to keep it from bei... by Jochim on Wednesday January 27, 2021 @06:13PM (#25935479)
I guess it depends on the ratio of effort to reward.

Personally I think arguing for levelling the playing field through tax reform would lead to quicker/easier results than arguing for altering the ways in which companies may invest in one another but that could just be because I've been involved in less discussion around the latter issue.

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