It’s rare that coming second beats coming first. But when Forbes issues its 2011 list of the world’s richest people today Bill Gates might feel proud to have been pipped by the Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim for the second year running.
Because the reason for Mr Gates’s demotion is that he has already given away a third of his Microsoft-made fortune. The investor Warren Buffett, who lives frugally in Omaha, is again likely to bag third place on the list. Having already handed $8 billion of his pile to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Mr Buffett plans to donate most of the rest of it, too. And when not writing cheques themselves, the two men chivvy others to do so. So far 59 billionaires have joined their campaign, The Giving Pledge, to give away half their wealth.
Why does America seem so much slicker at philanthropy than Britain? Giving away money is never easy. But Britain could make it much easier.
Tax breaks in Britain, where they exist, can seem modest. And, as with the Gift Aid scheme, they can also feel bureaucratically fiddly. That might explain why Americans on average give six times as much to cultural institutions as the British. In the US those earning more than £150,000 give eight times more than those in Britain.
Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, likes to cite Churchill’s remark that “we make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give”. But the Government could play its part to encourage generosity. Why not, say, allow gifts of artworks to be claimed against tax while the owner is still alive? Or raise the threshold of inheritance tax in proportion to philanthropic donations? Britain has its own millionaires. Many give handsomely. They could be induced to give even more.