Setting up the Guo Charitable Foundation had been part of Bruce's plan even before he left for Britain.
Tax planning was only one reason.
The other was that if he wanted to grow his business in America, he needed to look and act like someone who belonged there.
The tax side was straightforward enough. In the United States, a private charitable foundation generally only had to pay a very small federal excise tax, around one to two percent, and as long as it distributed at least five percent of its net assets annually for charitable purposes, it could avoid a great deal of the tax burden that would otherwise apply. More importantly, if Bruce ever wanted to pass the foundation on to his descendants, he would not have to deal with the crushing estate and gift taxes that came with transferring ordinary wealth.
Of course, just because a private foundation could shield money from taxes did not mean you were free to spend that money however you liked.
Under U.S. law, and under the basic rule that tax-advantaged assets had to be traceable and transparent, a foundation's donations, revenue, and expenditures all had to be documented clearly and disclosed for public oversight. So anyone dreaming of using foundation money to buy luxury cars, yachts, mansions, and spend their nights with Hollywood starlets while still hiding behind the language of charity was asking to be publicly destroyed the moment it came out.
There was also the cultural side.
In America, a great many wealthy people liked to donate a portion of the money they had made over a lifetime to public causes. Charity had long since become part of the country's social language. Plenty of rich Americans liked to repeat Carnegie's old line that dying rich was a disgrace. Whether all of that was sincere moral conviction or partly a convenient answer to high inheritance taxes did not really matter. The point was that, over the last century, philanthropy had become something expected. A serious person with serious money was supposed to give something back.
Bruce wanted to build his future in the United States.
That meant learning the local rules of the game.
And finally, a private charitable foundation was one of the few tools available to him that still allowed a high degree of control over large pools of money. Ownership mattered less if he could hold effective control indefinitely.
After reading through the documents from beginning to end, Bruce nodded.
"George, one more thing. If an offshore company or foreign institution donates to a U.S. nonprofit charity, that donation is not limited by the usual federal rule restricting deductible charitable contributions from corporate income to ten percent, correct?"
"Correct."
Bruce nodded again.
"That's all I needed. Thanks for the work. Go get some rest."
George Davis gave him a brief nod and left the office.
Once the room was quiet again, Bruce leaned back in his chair and thought for a while. Then he opened Phoenix Capital's Swiss account and transferred five million dollars out of the total three hundred forty-five million into the Guo Charitable Foundation's Wells Fargo account.
The moment that money moved, it became a donation.
For now, the foundation existed primarily to give him tax flexibility on future domestic income in the United States. As for the football betting money, that was foreign-source income. He was not stupid enough to move it into U.S. domestic accounts and invite the IRS to carve into it. For the moment, Uncle Sam was still mostly looking the other way when it came to Swiss banking secrecy. By the time the real crackdown came years later, he intended to have long since cleaned every dollar up.
At first Bruce considered sending the eighty million to Google right away and locking down the full forty percent stake once and for all.
Then he stopped himself.
There was still another month on the clock. He could wait until the Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia share purchases were settled first. And in the meantime, if Larry Page and Sergey Brin were still short on cash, they would stay a little more well-behaved.
After privately assigning the worst possible motives to two future business partners, Bruce shut the laptop.
His phone rang.
He glanced at the number and answered.
"Bruce, have you landed yet?" Christopher Ritt's voice came clearly through the line.
"Just got in. You still in London?"
"Yeah. I head back the day after tomorrow. By the way, everything's set for the release of your three books. They go on sale in three days."
Bruce's heart skipped.
His income from football betting had been spectacular, but that was a smash-and-grab opportunity, one or two big shots a year at best. Writing was different. Writing was a river, not a lightning strike. And the more books he accumulated, the wider that river would get.
One series like Fifty Shades had made its author a fortune in under two years. Harry Potter had turned Rowling from a struggling single mother into a billionaire. In the English-language market, a blockbuster author could make ten times what writers back home could dream of. With hundreds of bestselling books and film plots sitting in his memory, Bruce had always seen writing as the second major gold mine in his life.
He calmed himself before speaking.
"How many copies? What's the pricing? And how are you launching them?"
Christopher answered smoothly.
"Pirates of the Caribbean, the full trilogy, is priced at forty-five dollars and printed at three hundred thousand sets. Fifty Shades of Grey, also a trilogy, is priced at forty-eight dollars and printed at fifty thousand sets for the initial run. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Wrath of New York is priced at twenty dollars and printed at one million copies."
Then he added, "National Treasure: The Declaration of Independence is still in layout and production, so that one will come out about a week later."
He went on.
"As for the marketing strategy, we're leading with Fantastic Beasts as a kind of prequel event linked to Harry Potter. That angle should create curiosity and drive sales. Rowling also agreed to mention you on her blog. Between that and the strength of the book itself, it should raise your profile quickly. Once your name has enough recognition, Pirates and Fifty Shades will naturally get more attention too."
Bruce nodded.
The logic was sound, and it would save a considerable amount in promotional spending. But the print numbers also made Christopher's lack of faith in Fifty Shades painfully obvious. If Bruce had not been the majority owner of Thorn Bird Publishing, and if the rest of his manuscripts had not been so strong, Fifty Shades probably would not even have gotten a fifty-thousand-copy first run.
Forget it.
Let the market do the arguing.
He gave up the idea of trying to persuade Christopher to increase the print run.
"All right. I'll leave publishing in your hands. Call me when there's good news."
"You know I will."
"Then I'll let you go."
Bruce ended the call, opened his computer again, added Chen Zhen's email to his Yahoo account, and sent him a message. Then he opened Molly Bevin's address and sent off a teasing, slightly suggestive email of his own.
Thinking of her face, half cool and half bright, he found himself curious about how she would react.
Still, romance was hardly the main thing he needed to be thinking about right now.
Then another matter hit him.
He had almost forgotten Katherine.
He quickly moved another twenty million dollars out of Phoenix Capital and into the account of Guo Agricultural Company.
Not long after, his phone rang again.
He did not even have to check the screen to know who it was.
"Bruce, I just got a text from the bank. Some company called Phoenix Capital wired twenty million dollars into our corporate account." Katherine Lincoln sounded very awake.
"I know. I sent it."
"When did you get a company called Phoenix Capital? Why have I never heard about it before?"
"Katherine, you went off to Harvard. We haven't exactly been seeing each other every week. There's plenty you wouldn't know."
"Bruce, don't try to spin me. In less than six months, you made twenty million dollars? Wait. You're not..."
Her voice shifted, suspicion and concern mixing together.
Bruce cut in fast.
"I know exactly what you're about to say. Don't worry, the money's clean. It's just not something I can explain properly in one sentence over the phone. We'll talk in person."
She cut him off right back.
"Great. I want that explanation in person. Tonight. Seven o'clock. Crab House at Fisherman's Wharf. You're paying. Don't be late."
Then the line went dead.
Bruce listened to the empty tone for a second and shook his head with a helpless smile.
That woman really had not changed at all.
He set the phone down and checked the time. There were still four and a half hours before dinner. Even after the long flight, he felt no real fatigue. He had slept surprisingly well in first class the night before.
With nothing else pressing at the moment, he opened his laptop again and went back to work on the half-finished Paranormal Activity.
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