&gt; But calling it a tax shield makes it sound like you can stand to gain personally by doing this.<p>One (with that much wealth) absolutely stands to gain a ton from it.<p>A family member of mine works in financial trusts &#x2F; estate planning for multi-millionaires (many times over) and this is one of the things I&#x27;ve heard from them used to limit tax exposure while maximizing the most typical goal - not personal wealth (these people have more money then they will ever be able to spend, that isn&#x27;t the concern for them) - but rather maximizing family wealth.<p>And once you&#x27;re extremely wealthy, it&#x27;s amazing how large your family becomes.<p>Essentially - many charitable foundations are absolutely charitable in their fundamental mission, and best case are helping thousands of people with most of the money directly helping - however what happens in practice, is this  foundation then has family members work for it earning somewhere between a reasonable to a completely insane salary depending on any number of factors.