‘Low Bar’
Gates and Buffett are leading by example. The two richest Americans with a combined fortune of $156 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, have put more than $46 billion into the Gates foundation. Michael Bloomberg and three other co- founders of Bloomberg LP, the owner of Bloomberg News, have all signed the pledge.
Gates said in a 2010 interview with Fortune that he considered giving away half one’s fortune the “low bar.” But defining what constitutes half is difficult, a point exemplified by the estate of Albert Ueltschi.
A Kentucky-born pilot of Swiss ancestry, Ueltschi became a billionaire by selling his FlightSafety International pilot- training schools to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway for stock that was valued at almost $2 billion when he died. He also developed a close friendship with Bill Gates.
When the pair asked him to join the Giving Pledge, Ueltschi didn’t hesitate. He pledged the majority of his fortune to fight blindness.
“I have never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul trailer. You can’t take it with you,” Ueltschi wrote in his Giving Pledge letter dated Sept. 18, 2012.
He died one month later at age 95.
Estate Tax
In his will, Ueltschi commanded nothing go to charity if there was no U.S. estate tax, as had been the case two years prior. Because an estate tax was in effect, it triggered a clause that one-third of his estate go to charity.
All told, in life and death the billionaire gave $260 million away. Another $200 million will come once the Internal Revenue Service issues final acceptance of the estate’s tax return, his son James said in a phone interview. Once that happens, his father will have met the Giving Pledge, the younger Ueltschi said.