Many people seem to believe that “inheriting” e.g. The Gates Foundation is just as profitable as inheriting tens of billions in cash. My gut tells me that charitable law must be more complicated than that. What’s the truth?
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At a certain point, after one can have any comfort they want, any additional money is only valuable for growing fame and influence with wild projects or giving money to people making change in the way they want to see it. Most ways one may wish to influence things can be couched as charitable goals that fit into the legal definition of a foundation. Some very rich families aim to keep enough money to buy whatever they want to in their personal holdings, and then what’s left they move into a family foundation, with the family members and trusted friends as board the board. The board controls the giving priorities and elects the new board, so technically the family doesn’t “own” the foundation but it does control the decisions as long as it stays united and holds a majority of the board seats (or doesn’t add any non family board members in the first place)
Once the money is in a foundation, the money transferred is tax deductible for the donors and it grows tax free (as long as it doesn’t break rules, ie by self dealing — transferring money back to direct ownership buying services from the family company) while still being within their control and used for things that improve their reputation and influence (or more charitably to improve the world as they see it, given there isn’t anything left to buy).
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