So, you remember that stand-up comedy special that Louis C.K. distributed online for $5 last weekend? Absolutely nothing but good news came of it. Not only was it hugely successful — it’s made over $1 milllion so far, meaning at least 200,000 people have downloaded or streamed it — it demonstrated not just the drawing power of Louis C.K., but the ability and power of the Internet to cut out the middle man. Instead of all the extra surcharges and distribution fees that typically go along with putting a special like this out on DVD, most of the revenue was gravy.
And what does Louis C.K. do with his gravy? Horde it? Blow it on hookers and speed? No sir. Not Louis C.K. This man gives back. In a huge way. The first $250,000 covered the expenses (website fees, etc.), then he gave the second $250,000 to his staff as a big fat Christmas bonus. On top of that, he gave $280,000 to charities recommended to him by friends and on Twitter.
That leaves me with 220k for myself. Some of that will pay my rent and will care for my childen. The rest I will do terrible, horrible things with and none of that is any of your business. In any case, to me, 220k is enough out of a million. I never viewed money as being “my money” I always saw it as “The money” It’s a resource. if it pools up around me then it needs to be flushed back out into the system.
The only downside? Louis C.K. just gave the entire conservative movement ammunition to prove that trickle-down economics does indeed work, as long as the rest of America’s fat cats were as generous and big-hearted as the world’s most famous professional masturbator.
(Source: LouisCK.net)
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in b4 PolFlaWa
Great for Louis though
You should take a movement to review and proofread.
HAHA I FIXED IT SO NOW NO ONE KNOWS WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT.
Some day I aspire to be half the masterbator that Louis C.K. is.
Louis C.K. should run for the GOP nomination.
Where is my dreamy avatar?
This is pretty awesome, but it’d be even better if he did it without talking about it. Kinda tarnishes it a bit.
But I suppose if you’re going to talk about letting a bear eat your children, you should probably balance that out with “Hey, I gave some money to some folks!”
Not necessarily true. We hear about it when people do terrible things, we need to see examples of people doing good things as well. Particularly since, as you note, all Louis does is about his life, well, give me the good with the bad. All things considered, I see nothing wrong with doing good, telling people you did something good, and taking the praise that comes with it. It’ll come in handy for when a bear actually eats his children.
edit: “all Louis does is talk about his life…”
Right. So that would be why I put that last half of my comment. Still, for me, it takes some of the purity out of it if you’re doing it for praise or acknowledgement that you’re giving back.
OPINIONS!
Well, part of his “experiment” to see if selling a comedy special online would be profitable was the disclosure of the results and apparently what he did with said results. Also, he names the charities he gave to, which gives them some publicity (and hopefully inspires others to donate). Had he just said “gave some to charity” with no additional details, that would be somewhat douchier.
I didn’t download the special, but that’s only because I paid to see it in person.
/puts on skinny jeans
You should download it anyway so you can see the part that you missed after you left early to go see that Paper Chase concert.
Yeah, a friend in your hood was sitting next to David Cross at ABC bar and in walks Aziz Ansari with two models taller than him. “Aziz! And you brought girls!”. I’m imagining that you showed up next
Power to the Gingers!!
Whenever I pinch one off I label it a “conservative movement”.
of course you had to take a small shot at conservatives. quit occupying my tv blog
That’s the killer. The trickle-down would work if it weren’t for, you know, human nature.
As Herbert Hoover remarked during the depths of the Great Depression: “The trouble with capitalism is capitalists. They’re too damned greedy!”
I love the guy and I don’t know the details of how this was set up, but to me it doesn’t look any different than what any other rich person does to limit income tax liability. Maybe that’s too cynical, but it’s not like he would have been able to keep the money if he didn’t give it to charity. It would have just gone to the government instead. I just hope they were legit charities that can take some burden off the public sector, and not “Koats for Kittens” or some shit like that.
Don’t forget that US Treasury missed out because his staff all probably paid 18-20% on that $250k instead of Louis’s 40% marginal rate. Oh, and he still would have kept 60% of what he gave away. this whole line of argument makes no sense. He did right. Like many other people in the 1% who get a bad rap.
I’m not a tax lawyer but I kind of assumed this would be an S-corp, with him as sole shareholder. If I understand correctly the $750k left after paying for the production expenses would be treated as pass-through income, even if was used for capital investment like employee bonuses. $280k is about 40% of that $750k, and I don’t think that’s just a coincidence.
And I don’t mean to criticize the guy. Giving to charity is a perfectly legitimate way to limit tax liability. But let’s not pretend he’s the first rich guy in history to do it.
You’re right that it was probably some special purpose entity, most likely pass through. The bonuses would be expenses and reduce taxable income. The charity donation wouldn’t have been from the SPE because it doesn’t have any tax liability to offset. He would do it personally, but it would be a deduction, not a credit (ie, he is only benefiting from a reduction in adjusted gross income, not fully reducing his tax bill. If you could totally avoid taxes by giving to charity, there’d be a lot more giving. Right now to avoid paying taxes, you need a GE tax attorney. It all comes back to NBC sucking.
I suspect it’s much simpler than that. I got curious yesterday and did a little digging. According to the terms and conditions on the site selling the video it’s a product of Pig Newton, Inc. The t&c also contains a forced venue clause that makes New York the only state where litigation can take place, and sure enough Pig Newton shows up on the New York Department of State website as a simple domestic business corporation. Louis Szekely and an accounting firm are the CEOs and service agents, and it consists of just two hundred shares of non-par stock, which sounds to me like a sole-shareholder situation.
Wouldn’t he just file as an S-corp? Every penny of profit would be treated as personal income for the shareholder, including the portion re-invested in the business as employee bonuses, but it would still probably be the smartest way of doing it because he’d get a dollar for dollar deduction in tax liability for charitable donations up to 50% of his AGI, just like any other personal income tax filer.
I really think that’s what’s probably going on, but I could be wrong, and maybe he doesn’t even itemize. Regardless, I’m not saying this to embarrass him or somehow paint him as a hypocrite, I just think it’s a good example of how all this tea party occupation populist bullshit rhetoric about evil corporations and their tax liability is misguided. There’s nothing inherently wrong with corporations, and there’s nothing wrong with the fact that a lot of them don’t pay taxes, because a lot of them are just like Pig Newtow (fka “Funnier Than Todd Barry Productions, Inc.” according to the NY DOS site).
After he took care of his staff and gave to charity…”The rest I will do terrible, horrible things with and none of that is any of your business.”
/I guess he will blow some of it on hookers and speed. Good for him.