Link: Op-Ed Contributor - We All Pay for Leona Helmsley’s Bequest to Dogs - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com. The article begins,
THE latest news from the Palace, that Leona Helmsley left instructions that her charitable bequest of as much as $8 billion be used for the care and welfare of dogs, rubs our noses in the tax deduction for charitable gifts and its common vehicle, the perpetual private foundation. Together these provide a mechanism by which American taxpayers subsidize the whims of the rich and fulfill their fantasies of immortality.
and a bit later, continues
The charitable deduction enables people to donate as much of their assets as they like for charitable purposes without paying a tax. While some choose to contribute to broad public goals, the law does not require it. ...
If this were only a matter of Leona Helmsley wasting her own money, no one would need to care. But she is wasting ours too.
The charitable deduction constitutes a subsidy from the federal government. The government, in effect, makes itself a partner in every charitable bequest. In Mrs. Helmsley’s case, given that her fortune warranted an estate tax rate of 45 percent, her $8 billion donation for dogs is really a gift of $4.4 billion from her and $3.6 billion from you and me.
To put it in perspective, our contribution to Mrs. Helmsley’s cause equals approximately half of what we spend on Head Start, a program that benefits 900,000 children.
but I think the meat of it is here:
There are other reasons the law should not encourage people to tie up their resources — and ours — for all time. The perpetual foundation is based on the assumption that people can make intelligent decisions about the use of resources far into the future. But a look back shows how flawed this thinking is. Would it really make sense for current policy to be dictated by the vision of someone living in 1930? 1630? 1230?
By setting aside assets for the uncertain needs of the future, we deprive ourselves of resources for addressing the obvious and compelling needs of today.
YES!!
In my town there is a park which sits next to a 7-lane interstate highway exit, and it was donated perhaps 50 years ago by a landholder who specified that it must remain parkland forever. Never mind that Stamford has many pressing needs, and that there might be far better ways to use that land. Someone took it out of circulation, and their long-ago "gift" was accepted with strings that tie the hands of today and the future.
Leona Helmsley's fortune was accumulated largely from increases in land value. Land appreciates for reasons that have NOTHING to do with the landholder. But we treat them as royalty. Literally. Who should get that value? All of us. Not filtered through Leona Helmsley's wishes or generosity, but through the public collection of economic rent, month in and month out.
see also:
We might call this the Helmsley syndrome. Selfishness and greed appear to be the root cause of a significant percentage of suffering on the planet and the mechanism par excellence is private collection of community created land value. Ordinary garden variety selfishness and greed pale in comparison. Helmsley has gone one step further and tied up $billions in unearned gains from ownership of land for a long time in a perfectly legal manner. And this is not to blame Helmsley or create one more thing to hate. Even if she knew the injustice she was perpetrating she merely demonstrates in an in your face manner the absurdity of our current dysfunction. Humanity chooses dogs (God love them) over the well being of its own members despite all protestations to the contrary. Might as well own up to it. Is this not a form of feudalism that lost its noblesse oblige soul? Thank you Leona.
Posted by: Wendell Fitzgerald | July 15, 2008 at 04:38 PM