USA 2024 Elections Thread

[grarpamp]

> The races have begun...

The Left's Fraud totally owns the Fake News Media, that's bad.


All Left channels screeched in unison about Barre Seid's $1.6B
donation to the Conservative Right, ascribing to them all sorts of
foul intonations, tax accusals, nefarity, bad for the USA, etc...

https://www.propublica.org/article/barre-seid-heartland-institute-hillsdale-college-gmu
https://www.levernews.com/how-a-secretive-billionaire-handed-his-fortune-to-the-architect-of-the-right-wing-takeover-of-the-courts/
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/22/us/politics/republican-dark-money.html


Yet those very same Democrat owned Media, aka hyprocrites, are utterly
silent on critique and fully supportive with praise when they get $3B for
their causes. To hear about that one you have to go to alt news or biz news...


Patagonia Founder's 'Donation': Benevolent Planet-Saver Or Giant Tax-Dodge

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-15/patagonia-billionaire-who-gave-up-company-skirts-700-million-tax-hit

Now that the mindless lemmings in the mainstream media have finished
gushing over the idea that Patagonia's founder, Yvon Chouinard, was
giving up all of his company's profits for benefit of fighting climate
change, the reality of the situation can finally start to make its way
out.

No doubt you saw a headline somewhere this week praising Yvon
Chouinard for forfeiting ownership of his company and giving away its
profits to a "charity fighting climate change". There were no shortage
of liberal "I told you so's" being passed around on social media,
citing Chouinard as some type of living proof that capitalism is evil
and that everything will eventually revert to a Marxist utopia where
all profits are collectively shared for the greater good.

Here's CNBC's headline from this week, writing that "Earth" was now
Patagonia's only shareholder:

And of course, NPR gushed similarly:

That was, of course, until Bloomberg dropped a reality check on the
situation late in the day on Thursday with the pesky facts behind
exactly how Chouinard was setting up the transfer of his company.

Hilariously, the same lot praising the move to "fight climate change"
are often those advocating that billionaires pay their "fair share" in
taxes. Which is why it was really funny when, late in the day on
Thursday - after the love fest for Chouinard had fully run its course
- Bloomberg dropped the not-so-gushy headline that Chouinard was
actually skirting $700 million in taxes by how he structured the
transfer of his firm.

Oops!

And to make matters worse, the move was also structured in a way that
allows Chouinard and his family keep control of the company while they
protect it from tax bills that "could have totaled hundreds of
millions of dollars," the report says.

"Chouinard seems to have structured his Patagonia transfer with at
least a few purposes in mind," Bloomberg writes, noting that the
receiving company is a 501(c)(4), which allows it to make "unlimited
political donations" unlike a 501 (c)(3).

The moves also mean that "Chouinard won’t have to pay the federal
capital gains taxes he would have owed had he sold the company", the
report says. That would have been about $700 million on a $3 billion
company sale. Additionally, he also avoids the U.S. estate and gift
tax, which would have been a 40% chunk of change when his company was
transferred to its heirs.

Ray Madoff, a professor at Boston College Law School, commented: "We
are letting people opt out of supporting all the expenses of
government to do whatever they want with their money. This is highly
problematic from the point of view of democracy, and it can mean a
higher tax burden for the rest of Americans.”

Ellen Harrison, a tax attorney at McDermott Will & Emery in
Washington, confirmed that using a 501 (c)(4) allows Chouinard and his
family continue to effectively control the company.

She concluded: “I suspect the driver was trying to preserve the
company. Founders often 'almost view these companies as part of their
family.'"

So, uh, how many trees did we save today?