Miscellaneous desk
< August 23	<< Jul \| August \| Sep >>	August 25 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Miscellaneous Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

August 24[edit]

tax credit for matching fund charitable contributions[edit]

After reading that Melinda Gates has initiated a charitable drive for $1,000,000 in matching funds from the public for an education program, I have a few questions. On the surface, this seems like a worthwhile effort. But as I see it, the public already pays for schools with property taxes, while corporations such as that which earned Melinda Gates her $billions pay a very low tax rate. Further, if her name is on this charity, how does that affect her tax status for the whole effort? In other words, if she contributes $1M and the public matches that with $1M, I assume Gates' tax credit is for only the $1M she contributed. But in the eyes of the IRS, is it possible for her to realize a greater credit for the entire $2M? I know I can take a credit for any charitable contribution, but I wonder whether there is an added advantage for corporations to match charitable funds in the form of more tax credit. In any event, even if she receives tax credit for only the $1M, she would surely take PR credit for contributing $2M. It's bad enough that the middle class has the greatest tax burden for education, but now, do-gooder billionaires want us to gift even more, tho they pay such low tax rates --- odious. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 32.213.217.33 (talk • contribs)

Public schools are notoriously underfunded. Matching funds is a commonly-used technique to expand the amount of money that can go to a charity. Someone pays a million dollars and gets at least a partial tax deduction, while 100,000 people pay 10 dollars each and get a tax deduction. Sounds like a winner all around. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:09, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Bill and Melinda Gates have given away so much of their fortune through their foundation—$28 billion as of mid-2013—that it seems safe to say at this point that they're not doing it for tax purposes. As far as I can tell they intend to give everything to charity. They're not giving it to their kids. I dislike the overly rich and their tax dodges as much as the next guy, but I wish you'd chosen anyone other than the Gateses to pick on. Anyway, IANAA, but I'm 99% sure that no one but the small donors can claim that $1 million as a tax writeoff. Melinda Gates can't because it was never her money, and the charity can't because it's tax exempt anyway. -- BenRG (talk) 05:46, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes to further clarify BenRG's answer, as I understand it, and supported by sources like [1] (has a video, couldn't find a better source) even the matching part isn't directly coming from the Gateses. Instead, the (up to) $1 million is coming from their foundation. This money likely originally came from the Gateses (although there have been other high profile donors) and they probably could have claimed tax breaks when they donated it to the foundation, but not for when the foundation gives the money to someone else. Considering it's a relatively small amount compared to what the foundation deals with, there's a fair chance there was no specific donation for the matching part either. (Which is not to suggest the foundations financial arrangements are simple, see e.g. [2]). This is not to deny that the wealthy may use charitable trusts and other methods to reduce their tax burden, but it's more complicated than matching donations. See [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] for discussions from the US & UK. Nil Einne (talk) 12:32, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Also to clarify: there are two ways a person can reduce their tax burden in the U.S.: tax deductions and tax credits. Deductions are applied against a person's taxable income, and these usually apply to charitable contributions: If you made $50,000 dollars last year, and you donated $1,000 to charity, the government would only tax you on $49,000 income. This is how charitable contributions work to reduce your tax burden. Tax credits are used for other purposes, and reduce the tax you owe after you've calculated your income. If you earn a tax credit (such as the Earned income tax credit), this is reduced from the tax you owe the government: If you calculate you owe $3,000 tax based on your income, but have a credit of $500, you actually owe the government $2,500. Just wanted to make sure that the terminology is correct here. Charitable donations are tax deductions not tax credits. --Jayron32 14:47, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Anti Wiki Cookies[edit]

I've been getting cookies that completely block the word Wikipedia from any of my searches, as is if you no longer exist? I fix it temporarily by clearing cache & cookies. What Up?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.188.16.160 (talk • contribs)

I tend to stick to chocolate chip cookies and Oreos myself. --Jayron32 03:51, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's not what cookies do, despite the EU's best efforts to villainize them. —Nelson Ricardo (talk) 08:10, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Probably a question for the Computing Reference Desk, but is this in a websearch, and which search engine are you using (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc)? CS Miller (talk) 15:19, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

How does a Japanese person write on the computer?[edit]

Japanese alpherbet has over 2,000 characters

Japanese keyboard has ~100 keys many of which are function keys not characters

How does he write on the computer?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.242.42.97 (talk • contribs)

Our Keyboard layout article goes over this rather extensively. Dismas|^(talk) 23:53, 24 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

See also... https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Japanese_keyboard_layouts Ghmyrtle (talk) 12:57, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The main thing is the IME. You can type Japanese text on any international keyboard with an appropriate IME, and without the IME you can't do it even on a Japanese keyboard. -- BenRG (talk) 20:46, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You can also read Japanese input methods.

You can try out one kind of Japanese IME on Google Translate. Go to translate.google.com, select Japanese as the input language, then click the あ (Turn on Input Method). Now press the following keys and see what happens after each key:

k a r a o k e Space Enter

--Bavi H (talk) 23:43, 25 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]