Is It Time to Tax Harvard’s Endowment?

yes, not only charitable contributions but also the mortgage exemption. And then corporate taxes need to be eliminated completely.

 

struck an instability nerve with the old punt. Wow...must have been a preacher's daughter in a past life?

 

You sound vaguely like a guy who used to post around here...damir00

 

no,#1 I don't like using the tax code to manipulate behavior, investment wise or socially, regardless of how favorable we all agree the outcome would be.

and #2 90% of all our corruption is in that corporate tax code, it should be eliminated.

 

otherwise, any individual with a reg IRA gets the same break Harvard does. It's deductible going in and can be reinvested or traded totally tax free.

 

So that every wealthy individual starts to incorporate? You are creating more new loop holes than you try to fix

 

let them incorporate, they will accumulate tax free and pay in the end when the shareholders either sell or get a dividend.

 

That only works if they structure corporates in the traditional way. There are a million ways to get around paying taxes when no ordinary shares are involved.

 

that may be true, anyone could incorporate and spend money from the company and try to write it off as a business expense. Not much different than what we have now. We would still need an IRS, but it would be an old fashioned IRS where they try to get you for unlawful write offs. But sooner or later, the money passes to an individual, and that is when it finally should be taxed.

 

but getting back to op, the student should be liable for any money received from the endowment. Wouldn't that be a bitch? "We gave the kid 50k and by the time the greedy government got done with it, it was more like 40k."