November 2, 2000 | Read Time: 1 minute
By STEPHEN G. GREENE
About three-quarters of the very wealthiest Americans have their own private foundations, says Forbes magazine (October 30).
Such funds bestow several benefits on their creators, it says.
Donors and their families retain large measures of control over their charitable gifts. They also enjoy certain tax advantages: not only charitable deductions against their income, but also avoidance of capital-gains taxes on stock, real estate, and other items that have appreciated in value.
In some cases, they even receive income from their philanthropy: Walter H. Annenberg, for example, receives $500,000 annually as president of the Annenberg Foundation.
Foundations set up by people in the top third of the Forbes 400 — those whose net worth exceeded $2-billion — vary in many ways, including how their assets are invested. Virtually all the assets of some funds are invested in a single company, as in the case of the Mays Family Foundation, for example, which holds about $21-million in stock of Clear Channel Communications, whose chairman is L. Lowry Mays. The Moore Family Foundation, created by Gordon E. Moore, a cofounder of Intel, has a diversified $57-million portfolio that includes not a single share of Intel stock.
The article is available at http://www.forbes.com.
