The core claim above is that ultimately the foundation is a lip service activity to preserve wealth. If a hundred billionaire pays out 1 billion dollars in philanthropy via the foundation, but earns 10 billion tax free then they are doing quite well.

It's a trivial matter to write the terms of the foundation such that yourself/successors can draw permanent income via "board" positions, advisory roles, or other means.

How would that work exactly? Genuine question, I've never understood how donating saves on taxes, you have to pay at some point to access the money, no?

In theory, you could donate to a charitable org you control, live on its properties, travel for "business" reasons, so on and so forth tax free.

There's also the unfortunately more common interpretation I see on reddit where somehow people believe that tax deductions are generally greater than the donated amount

I think the idea is that you "pay" the charity instead of the tax man.

This in turn allows you to take income from the charity (as an advisor/board member/fake title) so you're getting some back (with 40% taxed as income) via charity "employment".

Then as a cherry on top, you get to push headlines that you are altruistic and have buildings named after you.

Also, your friends can be advisors/board members for your charity and donate you gifts.

This is how - https://techstartups.com/2021/04/30/bill-gates-turned-55-mil...

First you buy stock in your selected list of companies. Next you pledge suitable sums of money to charity programmes. Then you use your power and influence in ensuring said companies get all the big contracts. Your foundation is funding these programmes of course, so you can influence whom they partner with. The stocks of those companies shoot up and you profit. The funding is effectively more of a strategic investment than a donation. The tax savings are just a bonus.

Think about why Gates, who is in the philanthropy business, fought so hard to ensure Oxford don't put out their vaccine in the public domain? Oxford wanted to do so but Gates stepped in "suggesting" they partner with a well known entity like AstraZeneca instead. Of course, when you are a benefactor to an orgranisation, your suggestions tend to do more than just suggestions. AstraZeneca's terms were that they get exclusive IP and licensing rights and you know the rest.

In some aspects it is controlling how your TAXES are spent by cutting out the middle man.

I don't see how this is generally desirable though.

Replacing the government middleman with a rich-person & associated bureacracy middleman. At least the government is meant to be accountable to the people.

This exactly, and because of the absurd magnitude of wealth some people have they are setting policy with their foundations. Basically governing without ever being elected.

The whole philanthropy argument is irrelevant PR.

This wealth wasn't created in a vacuum.

I’ll start paying heed to this line of reasoning when a significant portion of tax revenue is spent bombing innocents. There’s very shaky moral grounds for many of our actions overseas, and I don’t blame any rich person for wanting to control policy for significant philanthropic efforts.

Does Oil & Gas fall under offshore efforts?

Gold & uranium?

There's always something some where worth taking, smoke and mirrors of democracy pave the way.

One country's terrorist is another country's freedom fighter.

We can in theory vote for people that wont bomb innocents we can't vote out the rich people in any meaningful way.

The laws that allow this philanthropy are controlled by us. We most certainly can vote them out of existence

We can't vote their wealth out of existence easily when they own the legislators.

It is a tool, you are right. But not the solution so it should not be so heavily encourage.

What should be encourage: a better distribution of the profits in the value production chain. At amazon, Wallmart, all the employees should be obscenely well paid (relatively to their job), the enormous profits should not be concentrated at the top.