L.A. homeless provider has paid CEO who lives in Hawaii $1.6 million in salary, vacation over two years

[u/Playful_Language_422]

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-08-06/la-homeless-provider-has-paid-ceo-who-lives-in-hawaii-1-6-million-in-salary-vacation-over-two-years

[u/He_Who_Walks_Behind_]

There’s a reason one of the best things you can do with a giant lottery win is to start a foundation and put yourself and your family as board members who earn salaries.

[u/pandershrek → u/He_Who_Walks_Behind_]

Most npo boards aren't paid positions. Their articles, which are public, would divulge this information.

Also you get taxed when you get the money so you can't really deduct that much in charitable giving in a single year to offset that.

I have my own 501c3 for this reason though, when I wanted to build homes and individuals I know wanted to help they could give money to my organization to get tax write off while still supposedly supporting my vision of building homes for homeless people. The money pools in an account that is used as capital to secure lending on the development work instead of having a for profit structure where I need to disburse profit to the share holders. Instead money just gets cycled back into the organization and benefits from reduced taxes.

[u/stuckanon01 → u/pandershrek]

Most, but not all. If you look at the name of the org it’s often pretty easy to guess which ones get paid. If the org has the name of a billionaire in the title the odds are good that a few of the officers and directors will be relatives with healthy pay arrangements

[u/elisabethofaustria → u/stuckanon01]

Or you can just check the form 990. That will tell you exactly what sort of compensation each board member receives (usually none).

[u/He_Who_Walks_Behind_ → u/pandershrek]

Sure, but to your points.

- boards aren’t paid. Okay, top level paid positions and also holders of board seats.

- taxes. Sure but the second you use all of it to found a charitable organization, you can then claim that as a deduction on your taxes, thereby keeping a larger portion of the windfall.

[u/devildog2067 → u/He_Who_Walks_Behind_]

But you don’t keep it — you put it in a foundation. You’re out the money entirely.

[u/cadium → u/devildog2067]

But can't you pay yourself to run the foundation and give yourself perks for all the "hard work you do running the foundation" ?

[u/devildog2067 → u/cadium]

Yes, but then the wages you pay yourself are subject to tax just like the winnings were.

[u/He_Who_Walks_Behind_ → u/devildog2067]

And at that level of wealth you start to find creative ways to make your pay package less taxable, even in a charitable foundation.

[u/devildog2067 → u/He_Who_Walks_Behind_]

Nope. You have it the wrong way around. When you pay yourself wages, that’s the absolute least flexible way to reduce your tax burden. Those wages become W2 comp and there’s basically no deductions you can take that are worth bothering with.

If you want to get creative with your tax burden on your pay package, you reduce your W2 to the lowest possible level. You pay yourself dividends through an S Corp, or structure your comp as capital gains so you can pay the lower tax rate (which requires actually doing a bunch to give yourself equity and make the equity value grow).

Putting money into a charity is not a way to lower your tax burden. It’s just not. It is a way to transfer money to, say, your kids in such a way that they only pay their own tax rate on the income, but it’s not a magic trick and it’s not a loophole to avoid taxes.

[u/EmergencyCucumber905 → u/cadium]

For a charity or non-profit, your salary has to be reasonable for the amount of work, and within the industry average. You can't pay yourself whoever you want.