American billionaires and philanthropists Bill Gates and Warren Buffett will visit China later this month to promote charity, with 50 wealthy Chinese individuals having been invited to a gathering to be held Sept. 29 in Beijing. Among those invited is Chen Guanbiao from Jiangsu province, a rare individual who has pledged his fortune to charity after his death. In Taiwan, we have yet to see any wealthy entrepreneurs who are as generous as Chen. In the past, many rich people in Taiwan used all possible means to transfer their assets overseas or to their descendants before dying to avoid the 50 percent estate tax. Their efforts to lobby the government to amend the law to lower gift and estate tax rates finally succeeded last year, when the rates were cut to 10 percent. The tax cuts are likely to reduce the incentive for wealthy people to give money to charity and further widen the wealth gap in the country. We hope Gates and Buffett will make Taiwan the next stop on their charity campaign trail to give us the chance to see how Taiwan's wealthiest people would react. (Editorial abstract -- Sept. 14, 2010) 