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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Your guts are right.
First of all, you don’t OWN a charitable foundation. You may have the right to control how the foundation spends its money (subject to some limits), but there’s no ownership involved there — it’s a separate entity.
If it’s a charitable foundation, then the foundation documents (and tax law) will specify how the money can be spent. At minimum, it has to be spent for a charitable purpose. You might have the ability to say “You know, I’d like this to go to the university my kids attend” (and, in fact, the Gates Foundation has given a lot of money to Duke University, where Melinda went to school). But, you can’t say “You know, I’d like this to buy me a new house.”
However, it may be possible to draw a salary from the foundation — the salary would have to be reasonable for the services performed (and the IRS is going to be looking over your shoulder.) Whether you could do that with any specific foundation would, again, depend on the foundation documents.
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