True to form.

“Truth be told, there were no good options available. So, we created our own.”
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I saw this incredible piece of news a day or so ago.  The fellow is leaving one heckuva legacy.  Plus, he's established a great model for others - with the means & high-minded purpose - to follow.  Maybe his action will inspire more such successful entrepreneurial souls out there.

He deserves our admiration.

Jimbo   8-)

Yeah, I smiled when I read about this guy a few days ago....a company visibly helping our planet vs a company keeping record profits and doing little with it....huh....

Like most everything, there is another side to this.
Not saying its not a good thing BUT he and his family are getting a BIG benefit tax wise on the deal.

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Read the article. Headline is a bit deceiving. The family doesn't have to pay taxes on the money they don't have because they gave it away.

Sort of like the huge tax savings I accrued by not winning the lottery. I saved millions in taxes by not winning the billion dollar powerball.

Likewise I could have won the powerball billion, given it all away and saved millions in taxes- I wouldn't be getting wealthier by reducing my taxes.

Patagonia has been and remains a very profitable business.  I seriously doubt the annual tax burden outweighed what the family stood to gain from the substantial ongoing profits & earnings they have walked away from.

There was a pretty good piece about this transaction in the N.Y. Times (I think) the other day.  They compared & contrasted the "gift" to monetary donations made in recent years by the truly super-wealthy  (Gates, Bezos, etc.) to environmental causes.  Their assessment: this deal was a substantially different animal and and not driven by tax dodge opportunities.  As I understand it, the founder/owner has donated the entire on-going, self-sustaining, profitable business.  So, rather than a one-time monetary thing, this is a kind of "living" donation that keeps on giving for a cause that is in keeping with the company mission statement.

I'm certainly neither an accountant nor a financial analyst.  Also, I'm sure there were some tax benefits for the donor.  Nevertheless, from all I've read, this appears to be a rather unique, nearly altruistic deal that will do more good, in the long run, than many one-time big-dollar, headline-grabbing gifts that probably have tax-avoidance at their heart.

Such is my limited understanding, anyhow.

Jimbo   8-)

It's a tax dodge in the sense that it renders a huge chunk of money as untaxed. It's not a dodge in the sense that any individual gains wealth through the process.

You can't save money by charitable tax deductions unless you engage in a lot of chicanery that is in the end illegal and, if caught, subject to sanction. The charitable tax deduction does not mean: "give 10,000 to charity get taxes reduced by 10,000". If you were making 100K a year and tithed 10% or $10,000 your taxes would be reduced by the amount of tax levied on that $10,000 of income. So if your tax rate was 15% you would save $1500 in taxes- but you had to let go of $10,000 to get that $1500 in savings.

I think that an individual taxpayer's ability to avoid taxes on charitable contributions is limited to 50% of gross income.