Secrets of the City

I saw this on the news this morning, and I swear to God, I almost cried. Whoever the donor is, you are wonderful!

I know we live in a world that loves to villainize the rich (people gleefully watched as Denny Hecker and Tom Petters self-destructed), but this shows something amazing that only someone of means can accomplish.

Someday I’d love to be filthy rich. And someday I’d love to be able to share my wealth in such a selfless and kind way. This is pretty frickin’ amazing.

At a time when many of us could really use some good news, this was welcome.

I hope people will also step up to help the 25 people left homeless by another fire last night.

Jason, no kidding, in the wake of the Petters’ and Madoff scandals it really is refreshing to hear.

I’m proud of America. I’ve told this to seveal people in Germany who are very impressed. Man, this plus Obama makes it very easy to be an American abroad.

Yes, I’m a broad.

Happy everything, everyone!

Yes, I’m a broad.

Heh. 

Fröhliche Weihnachten, Jane!

Although I know why someone would want to donate anonymously, I’m also dying of curiousity about who it was. They should at least get a card or something.

Remember the flack Mark Dayton got for giving that woman a laptop? This donation will likely remain anonymous because some people are unkind to acts of kindness.

I wonder if was the same anonymous (not verified) who comments here from time to time?

The name is spelled the same.

Doug, yeah, the donor’s already getting shit in the Stib’s comments (no surprize there).

I’m guessing people that have $1M to help people out don’t have the time or inclination to read the comments on newspaper websites.

I was astounded to hear it was ONE INDIVIDUAL making the monetary donation. Yes! There are good people in the world! (Then, the cynical side of me kicked in and said “I bet they aren’t a Bible-thumper, either.” I’d like to believe otherwise but the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do neocon crowd has made me rather contemptuous of Fundamentalists.)

@aliecat: I think the donor seeing the faces on TV of those who will benefit from the donation would be better than any thank-you card could ever be.

Someday I’d love to be filthy rich.

Jason, you bought a Sony Reader without bothering to check all the technical specs. Doesn’t that qualify? J/K

Alie, unless there were more that were removed by the strib, I only saw criticism of the donor from one or two individuals.

I saw much more contempt to those that will be receiving the assistance.

Jason, you bought a Sony Reader

I’m interested if there was any thought about buying a Kindle instead of the Sony Reader!  I have heard the display on the Kindle is fastastic with some sort of weird magnetic ink or something. 

mnblrmkr,
I thought that was shitty too. People lost everything they had and these dicks want to quibble about renter’s insurance and what they spend the checks on? Man, and I thought I was cynical.

The kindle is also sold out until at least February Dougie.

It is nice. Thats a large addition to those peoples income, and I do hope they account for it properly on their taxes.

DFL guy, Some income like that isn’t counted on taxes or for welfare, and some is. It depends on how it is presented and what the legal definition of it is. Oh, and a merry bah humbug to you.

You can receive a certain amount of money as a gift without having to declare it as income.

I would also think that if they used the bulk of it to replace items lost in the fire there would be some sort of way to report it on their taxes in order to shelter it.

But if the money comes from the Red Cross or other non-profit and is classified as disaster relief or fire relief or something like that, I don’t think it is counted at all. Kind of like if they got a check from the insurance company.

And add $17k to some of their inocome and they will still be below the level that they have to pay in taxes. From what I’ve heard the people living in these apartments were low income with kids.

I thought it was nice that the residents’ security deposits were refunded along with their December rent. It’s not much compared to the million (and $100k in two other gifts), but any instance of corporate generosity is sadly pretty rare these days.

Spells, you are right. It sounds like the company is trying to do right by the people involved. It is really nice to see.

The cut off for non-taxable gifts is $10k.

Actually, a gift recipient doesn’t have to pay any income taxes, no matter how much they receive. The donor does have to file a form for any gifts to an individual over $12,000 in a single year.

Even then, the donor doesn’t have to pay a gift tax until they burn through a $1mil lifetime gift exclusion (per gift recipient). Only anything over the $12,000 in a year is counted against that limit.

The recipient does have to pay any income derived from the gift (say they receive stock, or a trust, they’d have to pay taxes on dividends and interest). And of course, a gift received could be considered when determining assets for purposes of various assistance programs and financial aid.

Anyway, with the size of the donation, and the attention that it’s receiving, I don’t think there’s much chance that people are going to be able to hide it from any appropriate taxes or assistance considerations. Nor will it be likely (in spite of the claims in the Strib comments)that non-residents be able to claim they were actually tenants to grab any of the money.

bix, the limit this year is $12,000. It is inflation adjusted now.

I would guess anyway that the money was given to the Red Cross or other agency with the condition it be given to the tenants.

That way, the donor would still be able to claim at least part of it as a charitable deduction. It would also allow the donor to better protect their anonymity, if that is important to them.

If the donor simply wrote a check directly to each individual as a gift, there would be no deduction.

(and just to be clear, that’s perfectly legit, and doesn’t change my positive opinion of the donor’s action.)

I don’t remember exactly how the income will be counted for assistance programs, but since they were in a fire I’m pretty sure it will only hurt their cash assistance but will not do anything to their medical assistance. I’m pretty sure anything that comes from the Red Cross is completely excluded for all programs, including child support.

America does a pretty good job making sure fire vicitims don’t get all their other supports pulled out from under them due to gifts and such.

Anyway, whomever donated the money is a beautiful person.

Oh, and for future reference, Jason: that lifetime gift tax exclusion limit can be applied to the estate tax exclusion (currently $2mil).

Aw, that’s great.