Nonprofit News From Elsewhere
The Biden administration’s proposed tax hikes would give the wealthy more incentive to make charitable donations, a Biden aide told nonprofit leaders last week. Biden’s plan would nearly double the capital-gains tax rate for those who earn more than $1 million annually and would likely send those taxpayers looking for more deductions. The aide’s admission was implicit acknowledgment that the wealthy will look for ways around the tax hike. Some organizations are already pointing out to potential donors the increased value of gifts under the proposal, and one scholar said the enhanced tax break could give wealthy donors an excuse to give more to charities and leave less for their heirs. (New York Times)
Bill Gates’s objections to lifting patent protections for Covid vaccines raise questions about his foundation’s hold on intellectual property and the resulting implications for global public health. For example, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation owns a stake in a company that has agreed to supply 405 million doses of a Covid vaccine it is developing for the European Commission, “a deal that seems to raise new questions about Gates’s role in perpetuating vaccine apartheid,” given the relative scarcity of the vaccines in poorer countries. The foundation has said in the past that it uses its stakes in companies and intellectual property protections to channel innovation into solving public health issues in the developing world, but critics say these arrangements highlight the built-in conflict of interest among Bill Gates’s roles as philanthropist, businessman, investor, lobbyist, and adviser to policymakers. (Nation)
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Arts and Culture
- Frank Gehry’s Surprisingly Subtle $233 Million Makeover of Philadelphia Museum of Art Revealed (Art Newspaper)
- Nadella Family Donates $15 Million to Seattle Children’s Hospital (KING 5)
- D.C. Ballet School Executive Admits Embezzling $1.5 Million (Daily Beast)
