Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Why doesn’t Bill Gates (and the rest of us) donate money to the government?
Why doesn’t Bill Gates (and the rest of us) donate money to the government?
Mar 16, 2025 2:36 AM

When asked in a Reddit forum how much he should personally pay in taxes, Microsoft founder Bill Gates said he’s paid about $10 billion in taxes but that he should have paid more on his capital gains.

Gates also said, “As far as I know most billionaires (and other ply with tax laws.” This is certainly true in America. Most of our citizens seem to follow Jesus’s admonition to “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s” (Mark 12:17). But why don’t more people—including Gates—voluntarily pay more taxes?

I believe Gates is an honest man, but I don’t think he is pletely genuine about thinking he needs to pay more taxes. If he does, then the solution would be for him to give to the Federal government the money he thinks he should have paid. But he doesn’t do that. Why not?

The likely reasonis that Gates recognizes his money can be better used in other ways. Gates is the second most generous philanthropist in the U.S. (his BFF, Warren Buffett, is the first). As co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation he has given billions to fund such projects as ending extreme poverty and promoting global health. If he thought the U.S. government could—and would—spend his money more effectively, he’d have voluntarily paid more in taxes.

The reason Gates—and the rest of us—don’t consider thegovernmentour main choice for charitable giving is, as Matt Zwolinski once wrote, because we arerationally prudent:

[M]ost people know that there are better and more efficient ways of using their money to help other people than giving it to government. Even Warren Buffett knows this. Otherwise why didn’t he make that $37 billion dollar check out to the US Treasury?

We’re careful about how we spend our own money. Not just when we spend it on ourselves, but when we spend it on others too. Whether it’s consumption or charity, we want to get the most for our money. We’re understandably less cautious when es to spending other people’s money, but just because something is understandable doesn’t make it right. If we wouldn’t (and don’t) give our own money voluntarily to government, doesn’t this tell us something about whether we should try to force other people to give more of theirs under threat of legal penalty?

Featured image: “File:Microsoft Bill Gates (2472910099).jpg”byMasaru Kamikura from Japanis licensed underCC BY 2.0

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
When the Church Was the Center
This summer I made a visit to Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, and on a tour of churches, I heard a fascinating explanation of how society functioned when the church was the place where the poor had their material needs met, not the government. The Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg is one example. According to church records, Burton Parish formed in 1674 following the merger of several colonial parishes originating as far back as 1633. As a Church of England congregation,...
Obama Administration to Revise HHS Contraceptive Mandate Rule
Today the Department of Health and Human Services issued yet another revision regarding its contraception mandate. Details on the new regulations should be announced within a month. According to the Wall Street Journal: Justice Department lawyers said in a brief filed Tuesday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit that the federal government would issue new regulations in the next month that will apply to all nonprofit institutions that say the faith with which they are affiliated...
Pray and Labor?
“The Church fathers, East and West, have a long tradition that affirms the value of human labor,” writes Acton’s Dylan Pahman at Humane Pursuits. “And their reflections on the subject contain depths of insight still relevant for those of us who live in “the world” today, such as how to find meaning in whatever work one may do.” On the one hand, plenty of people may not see even a little lasting good in their job. The average factory worker,...
Great Britain is Poorer Than Every US State
At the height of power, circa 1922, the British Empire was the largest empire in history, covering one-fifth of the world’s population and almost a quarter of the earth’s total land area. Yet almost one hundred years later, Great Britain is not so great, having lost much of its previous economic and political dominance. In fact, if Great Britain were to join the United States, it’d be poorer than any of the other 50 states — including our poorest state,...
Would Christian Militias Help In Iraq and Syria?
Just as armed citizens have been protecting themselves and their property in Ferguson, Mo., small groups of Christians are forming in militia-style units in areas of Syria and Iraq. While most Christians believe they are allowed to protect themselves and others using force if necessary, it is a religion of peace. Christ himself urges us to “turn the other cheek.” Yet the outrageous and barbaric violence against Christians is moving some to call for a more aggressive stance against ISIS....
When is a Self-Described Libertarian Not a Libertarian?
A new report by the Pew Research Center finds that about one-in-ten Americans describe themselves as libertarian — and yet hold views that do not differ much from those of the overall public. As Pew’s Jocelyn Kiley says, “Self-described libertarians tend to be modestly more supportive of some libertarian positions, but few of them hold consistent libertarian opinions on the role of government, foreign policy and social issues.” Overall, 11 percent of Americans describe themselves as libertarian and have a...
The City Mouse and the Country Mouse
Over at the Federalist, Gracy Olmstead wonders “what happens when people bring the country to the city?” She goes on to argue that “urban farming could have conservative implications and outworkings—and we should encourage these endeavors as much as possible, in our efforts to bring traditional principles back to urban environments.” Is there a way to bring the city mouse and the country mousetogether? I’ve argued for the need for urban farming initiatives in the context of renewal movements in...
Women Are Dying, But Where Are The Feminists?
If there is one woman who has the ear of the president of the United States, it’s Cecile Richards. The president of Planned Parenthood campaigned for him, and has called him the best friend women could have. In a campaign video, Richards said, Since day one, President Obama has stood with women. The very first bill he signed was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, allowing us to make sure that women get equal pay to men. And under the...
The Problem with Catholic Social Teaching
Jeff Mirus, president of CatholicCulture.org, recently wrote about some problems with Catholic social menting on Samuel Gregg’s piece, ‘Correcting Catholic Blindness.’ Mirus argues that “Catholic social teaching goes beyond strict principles to assess specific social, economic and political policies, it has too often tended to see the possibilities with a kind of tunnel vision. It sees (or rather its writers tend to see) through the lens of ‘what might be loosely labeled a mildly center-left Western European consensus.'” …when es...
How Much Does Poverty Drive Crime?
I’m about to make a prediction that is incontrovertible — a claim that cannot be controverted because (a) I am absolutely right in my prediction, and (b) because I will be long dead before my rightness can be proven. Here’s what I predict: By the year 2114 social scientists will have established with 90 percent confidence that the “root cause” of the majority of the social maladies we experienced in the early twenty-firstcentury (i.e., right now) were attributable to family...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved