On the subject of money, sometimes someone just wants what they want.

I have a new neighbor in my culdesac who told me that an older corvette would make more sense to put money into.

So i lightly touched on my plan for the car, then she repeated her self...
So i told her it's basically to irritate my neighbors, this or a duce and a half pretty much...

Then i warned her about my plans for a tank... (The kind with tracks and a cannon).


​​​​​​​Sometimes people just want what they want!

 

You are certainly entitled to your "ideology" but when you come on here and make blanket statements, expect to get challenged. There is a portion of the members here who would fit your first statement above. For a liberal, you seem to make some pretty judgemental statements. You have no idea as to the background of the "rich old guys" you refer to. I will give you a bit of schooling.

I have closely followed BJ for a number of years, been present for a number of them and the "RV incident" to which you refer was not an RV at all but one of the GM Futureliners from the 1950's. In 2006, Ron Pratte from Chandler, Arizona, purchased this bus at BJ for 4.1 million dollars. For those who do not know him, Ron Pratte is one of the richest real estate developers in Arizona. He is also one of the most CHARITABLE persons in existence. In 2015, he donated this bus to BJ for resale for the Armed Forces Foundation. He then REPURCHASED said bus for another 4 million. In 2011, Ron Pratte purchased Jim Davis'(presedent of BJ) 1964 Rousch Ford Fairlane for 750,000 at the Las Vegas BJ auction. Once again, he donated this car back to BJ for resale at the 2012 Scotsdale auction, again for the Armed Forces Foundation. Guess what? Another "rich old guy with not enough time" paid 1 million dollars for it!(I guess in your view, his "testosterone got in the way" and had nothing to do with him wanting to benefit the veterans). All this and more to help the men and woman who fought for their country! Is that spending one's own money "selflessly" enough for you.

For years, Ron Pratte was the "go to guy" when a car was up for a charitable cause. I can assure you than Ron Pratte did not originally pay 4.1 million dollars for the Futureliner to "impress" the "good looking girl with him" as you so eloquently stated above. 4 million dollars to him is "pocket change" as I previously stated.

In future, before you decide to trash an entire demographic and then climb on your moral high horse, do your homework.

 

Be very careful of the charitable items. Oftentimes a charitable donation is financially better than a sale.

Donors who purchase items at a charity auction may claim a charitable contribution (deduction) for the excess of the purchase price paid for an item over its fair market value.

Obviously all of this depends on the appraised value. I just did a column about selecting an appraiser. The very first question is "Have you ever argued a case before the IRS." If they say no just move on.

Richard Newton
Do I Really Want to Restore This Car?

 

Undoubtedly there are intricate tax implications. However, on face value, they don't have anything to do with the point I am advancing about making unknown blanket statements. Even these tax calculations are highly misunderstood by most people. I will give you an example based on my country's tax procedures. I don't know about U.S. rules, but I can't imagine them being highly different.

When I operated my own contracting company, I was bombarded daily with solicitations for a donation for this cause and a sponsorship for that cause. The most used statement was, "You can write that off". For some reason or other, the average Joe Public seems to think that a 100.00 donation somehow equates to a magical 100.00 advantage to the person donating it. Not so.

Supposing at the end of the day, after all expenses, a company has 100,000.00 net income to declare for tax purposes. At 20%, that is a 20,000.00 dollar tax burden, leaving 80,000.00 in the coffers. Now let's be a nice corporate citizen and give 10,000.00 to the cause of the day. That now leaves 90,000.00 to pay the same 20% tax on. That equates to an 18,00.00 tax burden leaving 72,000.00 in the coffers. That is 8,000.00 less than if the donation hadn't been made. I struggle to see the "but you can write that off advantage".

 

I guess you missed where I wrote that the guy who had the young woman w/ him was one of the guys in the bidding war, not the guy who won the bid.

I also mentioned that there's a chance the man who won the bid for the 4.1 was charitable or contributed to his community. Sure I said the chance is still but I know its a possibility.

Now that you presented who he actually was and that he was/is in fact selfless, ok great. One thank you and two, its great to hear what he's done. I will even admit that I could have no actually should have done similar research and avoided the comment on that particular gentleman but would have easily been able to come up w/ many examples of the same point I've been making all along within the BJ auctions or others.

Call it a high horse, liberalism, hell you even said it was similar to communism, doesn't matter to me I will continue having that belief and spreading it. And you know, I don't spread it by solely talking about it on the internet but every now and then I might criticize an "old rich man" (which I will now btw replace w/ elderly since you seemed to have found it offensive) just as I'd criticize a young dumb rapper celebrity buying his 7th car that he knows nothing about. You keep wanting to defend the person's right to buy what they buy? Do it. Its honestly laughable that I'm even being challenged as you say, when my main point which I keep repeating is believing that selflessness is a good thing and lavish spending is useless. Never said anyone should devote their life to it but seems like that's how you perceive it.

If you'd like to continue discussing this, please PM me. I would like to avoid taking the OPs thread off topic even further.

 

It is only useless in the eyes of the one not doing the spending. To the one doing the spending, it may not be useless at all. By your thinking, there would be no luxury or exotic cars, only one style and size of house and hotels with only one style of room. Anything more would be considered by you to be "lavish".

 

I think you misunderstood about charitable contributions.

Let's say my car is worth $250,000. It's a race car so the market is narrow. Plus, I might have to pay capital gains on the car if I sell it.

I donate the car to a 501c3 and take a $300,000 tax deduction. If I'm in the top 5% then that not a bad tax break. I may walk away with more money than if I had sold it.

Now if I'm really serious I open my own 501c3 with myself as Chairman. Now I donate my $300,000 car to this 501c3. I have the tax deduction and I still have full use of the car.

It's a little more complicated than this but you get the idea.

Richard Newton

 

I do get it. That's why the first sentence in my reply was:


"Undoubtedly there are intricate tax implications"