Mark Zuckerberg created waves after his daughter Max was born by declaring he would give away 99% of his personal Facebook shares to charity during his lifetime. The declaration led to critics speculating he would evade taxes this way.
His current net worth stands at $45 billion, and the enormity of the sum sparked the debate.
The money would be given to the organisation Chan Zuckerberg LLC, to fund causes he declared.
"Our initial focus areas are personalised learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities. We've already made many investments over the past five years in these areas — education, science, health, internet access and inclusion — and you can see a summary of our investments on the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative page timeline," said Zuckerberg of his charity.
It was speculated that the "philanthropic" move was to evade taxes. However, Zuckerberg has written back to dispel those rumours.
"By using an LLC instead of a traditional foundation, we receive no tax benefit from transferring our shares to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, but we gain flexibility to execute our mission more effectively. In fact, if we transferred our shares to a traditional foundation, we would have received an immediate tax benefit, but by using an LLC we do not. And just like everyone else, we will pay capital gains taxes when our shares are sold by the LLC," he said.
"This enables us to pursue our mission by funding non-profit organisations, making private investments and participating in policy debates — in each case with the goal of generating a positive impact in areas of great need. Any net profits from investments will also be used to advance this mission....For example, our education work has been funded through a non-profit organization, Startup:Education, the recently announced Breakthrough Energy Coalition will make private investments in clean energy, and we also fund public government efforts, like the CDC Ebola response and San Francisco General Hospital," added the Facebook founder.
Earlier, Zuckerberg had gifted $100 million to Newark schools as well as signed the Giving Pledge with Richard Branson, Warren Buffett and other billionaires, promising to give away half his wealth, reported Techcrunch.