Like the Koch family, the Scaifes designed the trusts so that all net income had to be donated to nonprofit charities for the next twenty years. After that, the $50 million principal could pass to each of the Scaife offspring free from inheritance taxes. In other words, two decades of philanthropy was the price for a tax-free inheritance. As Scaife wrote of the setup, “Isn’t it grand how tax law gets written?”
