Even without all that, donating highly apprechiated assets is super useful for taxes because you not only get to deduct the value from your ordinary income, you also don't have to pay capital gains on the disposition of the asset.
I don't know where Mr. Griffin pays taxes, but if you have the right conditions, donating apprechiated assets is very inexpensive.
For example, if you're in california with oodles of income, your ordinary income will be at a marginal rate of 37 federal and 12.3 state, and your capital gains will be a total of 23.8 federal (includes niit) and again 12.3 state. So donating $1 of highly apprechiated assets avoids 26.1 cents of tax, and allows a deduction for 49.3 cents; it has the same effect on wealth as donating 14.6 cents. So it may have only cost $44M to donate $300M.
Of course, most people don't have $300M of ordinary income to deduct against, and aren't at the highest of the high brackets (and Mr. Griffin has residences in no income tax states, so he may not pay state income tax on capital gains anyway)
I don't know where Mr. Griffin pays taxes, but if you have the right conditions, donating apprechiated assets is very inexpensive.
For example, if you're in california with oodles of income, your ordinary income will be at a marginal rate of 37 federal and 12.3 state, and your capital gains will be a total of 23.8 federal (includes niit) and again 12.3 state. So donating $1 of highly apprechiated assets avoids 26.1 cents of tax, and allows a deduction for 49.3 cents; it has the same effect on wealth as donating 14.6 cents. So it may have only cost $44M to donate $300M.
Of course, most people don't have $300M of ordinary income to deduct against, and aren't at the highest of the high brackets (and Mr. Griffin has residences in no income tax states, so he may not pay state income tax on capital gains anyway)