February 26, 2018 - Hard Rock Hotel Vegas (JBJ Solo)

Originally Posted by Becky

The sauce has a percentage of proceeds going to Jon’s foundation to feed the hungry and house the homeless. Damn, what evil motives!

Originally Posted by Supersonic

Aloha !

I'm sorry, as harsh as faith195325 sounds, she has a point.

There's a thing people not seem to understand here. Jon hasn't spend any of his own money on this stuff yet he's portrayed as some holy saint every time this stuff comes up on interviews. He's able to do run this foundation because he makes millions on ticket sales. Instead of paying taxes over his income, he deducts his spendings on the foundation on his taxes.



It keeps surprising me how Americans say these things. It's as if they just don't understand their own tax system. I'm not someone who's studied economics, but I think I get the gist of it, so please correct me if I'm wrong here.

Let's say Jon makes 3.000.000 over a show at MSG. He's got to pay income taxes over them, let's say roughly 25%, which is 720.00 dollars. He decides to spend 20.000 on the Soul Foundation. He now has to pay 720.000 dollars. Now I'm not sure if the amount of money he's able to deduct is capped, but everyone likes a tax deducation, no matter how big or small. Now imagine being able to decide what to do with that money. Would you say no?

The sauce company spending a percentage of proceeds on Jon's foundation also means they'll get a tax deducation. There's hardly any personal money spend here. I'd go even further and say the sauce company wouldn't exist if it'd not get the tax deducations in the first place. Jon's able to afford a bunch of good lawyers, I'm sure they'd be able to find ways to come up with stuff like this.

Yes, he spends his free time talking about it, but him talking about it on TV creates for a better image as well, both for the Foundation and for him. A better image means more goodwill from people to buy your stuff. There's people out there believing the proceeds from ticket sales go to charity, so yeah, it works wonders for him. If you honestly believe he'd set up something like this with money coming from his own pocket you're delusional, the man overcharges everything that's got his name on it.

I'm not saying Jon's a careless wanker because I honestly believe he cares for New Jersey, this goes all the way back to a time long before his foundation existed. I very much doubt he'd go through this lengths would he not get something back from it though, and I'm not talking about the way his ego is being stroked. Once you go back to people who pay all their taxes, don't go on TV, don't get all the good press over it, and really do it because they want to give something to the community I can see why it rubs those people the wrong way. They don't get the same tax break Jon does, yet could probably use it a lot more.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

Originally Posted by Rdkopper

The ultimate goal is to lower your tax bracket however it's not wash. If Jon writes off that million dollars he gave to Oprah, he doesn't get a million dollars back at the end of the year. It will just lower his gross income by that amount. In addition, it all depends on what tax bracket he's in but let's just use 25% for simple math. If he gives 1 Million Dollars to Oprah and writes that off, it's like give 750 thousand of his own money away.

Originally Posted by Rdkopper

I know first hand Jon paid millions to restructure and build the Soul Kitchen out of his own pocket. Sure he wrote it off but again, Jon didn't get back nearly what he put into it.

Originally Posted by Rdkopper

I'm not even a Liberal but Faith1985 is just a complete dipshit for making a statement like this:
"The moment there was the vegas shooting Jon is using it to market it with the vegasstrong-tag. "

Originally Posted by Supersonic

Aloha !


Your simple math is wrong because that's not how it works.

Let's say you make 10.000.000 dollars. You've got to pay 50% taxes over this. But you spend 5.000.000 on the Soul Foundation in the same year, meaning it's tax deductable and you've now only made 5.000.000. So you wind up in a different tax bracket, let's say the one for 25%. You suddenly need to pay just 25% over the 5.000.000 as opposed to 50% over 10.000.000.

50% of 10.000.000 dollars = 5.000.000.
25% of 5.000.000 = 1.250.000

Instead of paying 5.000.000 on taxes he spends it on the charity foundation and winds up having to pay just 1.250.000 dollars on taxes, so no, he didn't have to spend a dollar on this stuff. That's how it works according to an American who explained your system to me.

Originally Posted by Walleris

If we use your example, Jon keeps 3,750,000 to himself instead of 5,000,000 he would if he didn't do the write-off. He still ends up spending a large chunk off his own pocket. Does he not deserve get credit for that, even if the faulty US tax system is a major assistance?

I also get the whole "doing charity for image" angle, but his work is much lower-profile from a publicity standpoint than some of his peers (e.g. Bono, Beyonce, Taylor Swift just to name a few) and is directly related to local community. A lot of it is family work done by Dorothea which probably gets no coverage for obvious reasons. Then there are things like meeting that leukemia kid 3 years ago or so that would've gotten no publicity if there wasn't for the kid's family spreading the news, as Jon showed up just by himself with no photographers or anything like that.

I crap on the guy's voice and decisions to still keep touring on a regular basis. And he can surely be a dick sometimes, on and off the stage. And while he's no perfect angel Becky portrays him to be, I believe from being a die-hard fan for 10 years that his track record is one of a genuinely good dude overall. But in the end, nobody knows for sure.

Originally Posted by bjcrazycpa

Since I am a U.S. tax CPA, I want to clarify just one little detail. If you have a private foundation and you are considered a "disqualified person" defined as a trustee, director, manager or officer, you cannot take a charitable contribution deduction on your own personal tax return for any monies given to the private foundation. That would be a violation of the IRS self dealing rules. So, although Jon gets to take tax deductions for other charitable donations he can't take them for his own foundation. Also, another detail to consider, itemized deductions are phased out completely once adjusted gross income exceeds just over about $315K. So, to be honest, Jon's not getting a lot of tax benefit from any money he gives away.

And I'm sure that is more than y'all wanted to know about US income tax rules ha ha!!

Originally Posted by Rdkopper

I didn't realize they capped standardized deductions at 315K... although if it's over, can't it fall into he next tax year????

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