Buffett the Benefactor
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
When Warren Buffett and William H. Gates III, the two richest men in America, walk into the New York Public Library this morning, they will pass by the oil paintings and marble panels that carry the names of those who created the library, whose full corporate name is The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. John Jacob Astor, James Lenox, and Samuel Tilden would no doubt be smiling to know that the first thing the Sages of Omaha and Seattle did after announcing what looks to be the largest philanthropic transfer of wealth in history was to meet in New York at an institution that is one of the great successes of private philanthropy.
Mr. Buffett’s decision to give away to charity Berkshire Hathaway stock valued at about $37 billion, much of it to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is the sort of bold move that has made so many Americans admirers of Mr. Buffett. As an avowed supporter of the estate tax, Mr. Buffett could have let the government take its share of his estate after he dies. But just as Mr. Buffett has accumulated his vast wealth without paying much personal income tax, he has found a way to avoid the tax man in this maneuver as well, even writing in his letter to Bill and Melinda Gates that a condition of the gift is that the foundation “must continue to satisfy legal requirements qualifying my gifts as charitable and not subject to gift or other taxes.”
On the estate tax, watch what Mr. Buffett does, not what he says. The Gates Foundation isn’t the only recipient of his largesse – three foundations headed by Mr. Buffett’s three children, Susan, Howard, and Peter, will get hundreds of millions of dollars. Tax documents show that in 2004, Peter Buffett and his wife Jennifer each took a $40,000 a year salary for what they reported was 30 hours a week each of work on the foundation. Mr. Buffett has told Fortune (which broke the gift story) “Love is the greatest advantage a parent can give,” and no doubt he is right about that. But that isn’t all he’s giving his own children. Which is as American as the New York Public Library or as a sundae from one of Berkshire Hathaway’s Dairy Queens. The moment will remind us that new giants to rank beside the Astors, Lenoxes, and Tildens can be handed up by each generation.
