Bonum Certa Men Certa

Painting Tax With a 'Charity' Brush

"My background is finance and accounting. As a socially conscious venture capitalist and philanthropist, I have a very good understanding of wealth management and philanthropy. I started my career in 1967 with the IRS as a specialist in taxation covering many areas of the tax law including the so-called legal loopholes to charitable giving. […] However, the Gates Buffet foundation grant is nothing more than a shell game in which control of assets for both Gates and Buffet remain the same. […] The only difference is that the accumulation of wealth by these two will be much more massive because they will no longer have to pay any taxes."

The Gates and Buffet Foundation Shell Game



Shell on the beach



Summary: The loophole which plutocrats are exploiting and how we can tackle the problem or at least help people recognise this problem

TECHRIGHTS strives to promote ethics and to promote critical thinking, encouraging people to educate others about the difference between public relations and investigative journalism. As part of our investigation we sometimes deviate a bit from software and from patents, provided that a link/bridge remains. Politics cannot be explained without some science and, conversely, what happens in science cannot be accounted for while totally ignoring politics. Face it, it's the way life goes. It is also the way government procurement is often being done. People in power tend to help other people in power (usually politicians help the rich and vice versa). Human engagement and civilised affairs have always been about "friend helps a friend/kin" (or "dog-eat-dog"). Software makes our life much easier, but for many of us (especially the 'bottom' 90% which the West likes to forget about or merely exploit) it can make life a lot more miserable. Software can help those on power "capitalise" on the labour and health/welfare of others. So we duly apologise for not always talking purely about technology. We worry about how it affects people's life, e.g. their freedom, their relationship with their neighbours, etc.



"It is really all taxpayers who pay for it. They give their tax dollars for one man's (or woman's) self-promotional PR campaign."In the coming weeks we are going to catch up with the Gates Foundation, which serves Microsoft as a lobbyist and a financier of Linux-hostile patent trolls. It is difficult to counter the message echoed by the press when the Gates Foundation spends approximately one million dollars per day (on average) just buying positive coverage rather than giving anything, but we are going to try. As Rusty explained in a recent episode of TechBytes, this trick is not unique and it has been done for many decades if not centuries. The basic idea is, people to whom tax would be at the range of many millions or over a billion realise that it might be cheaper to just set up an entity which exempts them from tax and then uses those savings to do some reputation laundering. In essence, money which was supposed to be paid back to the public as tax is being misused to portray some very greedy people as heroes of a nation. It is really all taxpayers who pay for it. They give their tax dollars for one man's (or woman's) self-promotional PR campaign. To make matters worse, in Gates' case the tax haven as also used are an investment and lobbying vehicle which pushes governments to give taxpayers' money to companies the foundation invests in (for profit).

Philanthrocapitalism needs to be scrutinised more. The relevance to us is that one such entity that engages in philanthrocapitalism (the largest of its kind) is harming people's freedom and promotes Microsoft. By researching its behaviour we can help demonstrate what others like it are doing as well. The tricks are universal because the loopholes are mostly the same anywhere one goes.

Our most comprehensive coverage of this subject is from 2009 and to a lesser degree 2010 as well. At some stage we realised that it became repetitive as even though there was clearly news to be shared (e.g. Gates 'buying' another media outlet or gets caught in another major scandal), the principal symptoms were the same and elucidating it all was a cyclic exercise consisting similar counter-arguments. Like many other sites that reach a point where the unique conceptual material is exhausted, we are probably going to cover the Gates Foundation using links summaries and excerpts. Our readers are smart enough to infer the necessary from these and our wiki page on the subject contains rebuttals to most of the key points.

Recent Techrights' Posts

New Video Report About Microsoft Cancelling Multi-Billion Dollar Projects
direct link to the video
Microsoft is Already Laying Off Lots of Contractors
cost-cutting at Microsoft takes a new "edge"
Coming Soon: Microsoft Fake Results, Mass Layoffs, and Silence About All the People Microsoft Pressured to "Quit" (So That They Don't Get Counted as Layoffs)
there will be more mass layoffs
Speed of GNU/Linux
The media seldom speaks of the dangers of "proprietary software"
 
Google Spreading Misinformation and Lies
Google is in the propaganda business
statCounter: GNU/Linux Adoption Surging in Switzerland, Windows at All-time Low
What happened?
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: Free Speech and Perfectionism in Design
Links for the day
What Fake News Looks Like (IBM)
IBM told a lie. The media then just blindly repeated this lie.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, April 28, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, April 28, 2025
China is Already Culling GAFAM (Not Just Microsoft Windows)
OS monoculture or "OS hegemony" may be coming to an end
The "Telephone Operating System in the Vatican" is 95 Years Old, Vatican Moved to GNU/Linux
Maybe Microsoft is down to zero already
If Tesla Shares (and Alleged Value) Fell 55% (From $489 to $222) in a Few Months Maybe It's Not Worth Anything At All (It's Just Gambling)
Tesla swasticars have turned from a "status symbol" into a "public embarrassment" and cause for casual humiliation
Chromebooks' Adoption in Sweden No Longer Depends on Schools
School breaks are when classrooms are shut
No, IBM is Not Investing $150 Billion in the US and It Doesn't Even Have That Kind of Money
Here we go again... media as a vehicle of lobbying and misinformation
Leak: The EPO's General Consultative Committee (GCC) Does Not Consult Staff on Crucial Matters and Bypasses the Administrative Council (AC) to Do Illegal Things
violations against the EPO's very staff
New Leaks Coming Soon, We Maintain 100% Record of Successful Resistance to Censorship
We won't be told what we can and cannot say (especially when it's true)
Central African Republic (CAR): Vista 11 is Only ~0.2% Market Share
99.8% to go!
BSD and GNU/Linux Replaced Microsoft in Secure Servers, All Microsoft Has Left is LLM Slop for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD)
the FUD machine never rests
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: A Simple Task Tracking and Auto-Prioritization Tool and Other Programs
Links for the day
Links 28/04/2025: Canada's Election, Pakistan-India Conflict
Links for the day
Glue Inside Your Pizza (or Why People Will Get Fed Up With Slop)
People are given "answers" from non-intelligence word dumpsters
Proprietary Windows Versus "Linux" News (Trying to Keep People on Windows, Never Exploring GNU/Linux)
Good editors know better how to recognise threats and not give them lip service
Ensuring That Every Computer User Anywhere in the World Can Take Control of All His or Her Computers
We must fight the people who attack general-purpose computing, in particular those who push this agenda very aggressively inside Linux
Links 28/04/2025: Cyberattacks Happening, Chatbots Disappointing, and "Free Speech Under Fire"
Links for the day
Phone Adoption Very Low in Vatican, Windows Usage Fell Nonetheless
Even in places where people still use desktops/laptops most of the time (and have access to these) Windows is gradually losing ground
GNU/Linux 9% in Cuba, Vista 11 Waning, Android Dominant
Microsoft has pretty much lost Cuba
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: Autism and Structural Navigation
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, April 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, April 27, 2025
What Happened to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Elections: The Purge, the Cover-up, and the Witch-hunts
OSI has gone "full Microsoft"
In 24 Countries Observed by statCounter Vista 11 is Still Less Than a Quarter of Windows Users Despite All Other Versions Being 'Expired'
They ought to move to GNU/Linux
Links 27/04/2025: Pope Goodbyes, "Politics of Fear", Slop Redux and More Google Shutdowns (Google Debt Had Grown This Year)
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Serenity Dialectics, Hockey Jersey Ethics, and More
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Death of Nest Thermostats, Death of Metaverse
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Projects Workflow and Discovering Technology
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, April 26, 2025