Billionaire Barre Seid gave his company to a conservative nonprofit organization in 2020 and 2021, which then immediately sold it.
The fallout was that the conservative nonprofit group, the Marble Freedom Trust headed by Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society, got $1.6 billion to spend. Seid managed to give away his family fortune without having to pay taxes on the transfer.
You see, had Seid simply sold the company, he would have paid taxes on its increase in value, and thus he would have had less to give to Marble. This, the New York Times told us, was “an unusual series of transactions that appear to have avoided tax liabilities.” It was another story of “dark money,” “conservative big money politics.”
In 2022, billionaire Yvon Chouinard gave his company to a liberal nonprofit organization called the Holdfast Collective, which can use its money to fund politicians and political causes.
The fallout is that the group will have a $3 billion business to fund its lobbying, politics, and maybe conservation efforts. Chouinard managed to give away his fortune without having to pay taxes on the transfer.