Anand Giridharadas: College Bribery Scandal Highlights How America is Rigged for Wealthy & Powerful
A taste:
ANAND GIRIDHARADAS: Yes. So, there are two things here your viewers really need to understand, because this is why this matters to all of us. First of all, at a more general level, this case is not a one-off, in the fact that the mechanism by which rich people were exerting wealth, influence and rigging things was charity. If you look at the Koch brothers, many others, the mechanism by which a lot of this stuff is done, and the kind of conquest of power is done, is through charity and philanthropy. So it’s very notable, but also very telling, rather than exceptional, that the mechanism here was charity.
More, and more generally:
ANAND GIRIDHARADAS: Yes. So, there are two things here your viewers really need to understand, because this is why this matters to all of us. First of all, at a more general level, this case is not a one-off, in the fact that the mechanism by which rich people were exerting wealth, influence and rigging things was charity. If you look at the Koch brothers, many others, the mechanism by which a lot of this stuff is done, and the kind of conquest of power is done, is through charity and philanthropy. So it’s very notable, but also very telling, rather than exceptional, that the mechanism here was charity.
But to your tax deduction point, which is so important, there’s several layers of the tax deduction. First of all, the rich people donated to this fake charity—
AMY GOODMAN: Key Worldwide Foundation.
ANAND GIRIDHARADAS: —to feed the bribe. That would eventually be reinvented as a bribe. So, that’s tax reduction number one.
Now you’ve donated to this fake charity. You can—let’s say you donated a million dollars to it. You can now take a million dollars off your income—right?—and save $400,000, $500,000. Amy, who do you think pays for that? Everybody watching this. You have to understand, you paid higher taxes last year to make up for the shortfall of giving that rich person a half-million dollars in tax deduction. Great.
Next step. The charity receives that money. Because it’s registered as a charity, it’s a nonprofit. It doesn’t pay taxes, the way other organizations that receive money, income, would pay taxes. Again, you are paying money, because the system requires a certain amount of money, and if they’re not paying it, you’re paying it. OK? And then, some of those donations went to the Stanford Boating Association, other nonprofit, including nonprofit universities, right? And so, they don’t pay taxes on that, either. And again, you are paying taxes for that money a third time passed on.
And these universities, in many cases, are now sending 50 percent of their graduates into consulting, finance, Silicon Valley. So it really raises the question of why, frankly, you need to subsidize them with your hard-earned tax money, for them to not pay taxes.
More, and more generally: