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The author is the third richest woman in the world. The fortune is due in part to an unwillingness to pay taxes.
Photo: Evan Agostini / Invision
MacKenzie Scott (50) has become about NOK 200 billion richer during the crown crisis.
And she knows it’s unfair.
“The pandemic has been devastating to many Americans who already had a lot to contend with. At the same time, it has significantly increased the fortunes of billionaires,” he writes in a post on the Medium website this week.
With a staggering wealth of 530 billion kronor, author MacKenzie Scott is the 18th richest person in the world and the third richest woman on the planet. But he is still not among the most famous super millionaires.
Ex-husband Jeff Bezos, on the other hand, most people have heard of. He is the richest man in the world. And it is through the enormous fortune of the Amazon entrepreneur that Scott has acquired his own. When the couple divorced in the spring of 2019, she received 25 percent of his shares in the company.
Soon after, he promised to give away most of it.
More than Norway
This year he has shared much more. About six billion dollars, to be precise.
This corresponds to around NOK 52 billion. By comparison, Norway’s development assistance budget for next year is NOK 38.1 billion in the government’s proposal for the state budget.
Scott has chosen to give away the money in the form of donations to selected organizations and foundations. The first payment was made in July, when it gave away nearly NOK 15 billion to 117 organizations.
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He is the richest man in the world. The pandemic has made it even richer.
Thoroughly check recipients
This week a new round came: 384 organizations received a Christmas gift for a total of NOK 36 billion. Beneficiaries include the civil rights organization NAACP, the YMCA youth association, and Easterseals, which help people with reduced mobility.
Each contribution was the result of a long and thorough evaluation process, writes Scott in his Medium post:
“We analyzed 6,490 organizations and further analyzed 822 of them. 438 of these were pushed aside because they could not document impact or because they had other deficiencies,” he writes.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world. Your company pays almost no taxes. Photo: Lindsey Wasson, Reuters / NTB
This way of distributing money, rather than donating everything to a museum or a single foundation, has received a lot of attention in the United States in recent months.
“Whether you have $ 25 million or $ 25 to spare, there is much to learn from how MacKenzie Scott donates his fortune,” writes Time Weekly magazine.
Large donations are part of a trend among billionaires who promise to give away their money while they are still alive. Through “The Giving Pledge” project, 211 wealthy people have made that promise so far.
Among them are several Saudi princes and former New York Mayor Michael Boomberg.
Barely pay taxes
The wealthiest Americans have seized an increasing share of the nation’s total wealth in recent decades. The difference between the super-rich and everyone else has become much greater.
The richest percentage, for example, now own more than the entire American middle class combined, according to the Brookings think tank.
Much of this is due to the refusal to pay taxes, which in turn gives the state less money it can spend on measures for the rest of the population.
The Amazon company, for example, which is the reason for MacKenzie Scott’s huge fortune, is known for working hard to avoid paying taxes.
Last year, the company made a pre-tax operating profit of around NOK 120 billion at the current dollar exchange rate. Of this, Amazon paid 1.2 percent in taxes, according to US tax authorities.
