At issue here is _not_ whether this one instance (Zuck) is a tax coward or a much needed 21st century philanthropist. Instead this is about whether our tax-code can raise tax rates on business-owning millionaires and billionaires to arbitrarily high levels and capture the desired revenue.<p>Economic historians have documented this type of tax avoidance in previous era of high taxes. When an executive was taxed 90% of his income, his salary was greatly decreased and instead got 2-weeks time on the company&#x27;s (pre-tax) yacht.<p>These type of &quot;global charities&quot; are very disturbing at this moment when it is becoming clear that tax rate will need to be increased substantially in the future to pay for our growing deficit. Which means it will become increasingly desirable to be employed or make deals with one of these shell corporations (zero tax), while all the boring but  actually essential things like construction will face huge tax burdens.<p>Ultimately, the big fear is that it will become completely rational to spend more effort trying to game the IRS then it will to do IRL value-add. (see Michael Lewis&#x27;s piece on Greece in the run-up to &#x27;08 to see what this looks like)