Brangelina Accounts for Charitable Millions

Fri., Mar. 21, 2008 4:37 PM PDT by Natalie Finn

'Twas a mighty benevolent year for Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.

Tax records show that the beauteous couple donated more than $8.5 million to various charities in 2006 via their Jolie Pitt Foundation, according to documents obtained by E! News. (View the tax return.)

Although both A-listers are used to not being able to do much without constant media scrutiny, neither appears to be the one who stops the presses when a check is written to a deserving cause. But, of course, all that paper leaves a trail, as discovered by the Huffington Post, which first reported their grand philanthropic total.

The Jolie Pitt Foundation's inaugural federal filing states that the relatively new organization doled out $8,525,930, in 2006, with Pitt accounting for $4,402,317 and Jolie chipping in the other $4,123,613.

They were able to put that amount together in part because of $2,367,935 in first-year donations. And staff expenses totaled only $27,000, a sum that would probably give most Wall Street CEOs a heart attack.

Organizations that most benefited from Jolie and Pitt's massive coffers included Doctors Without Borders and the Global AIDS Alliance, which received $1 million apiece.

Other sums included $137,935 to the Namibia Red Cross Action Program, part of their continuing commitment to give back to the African nation where daughter Shiloh was born; $100,000 to the Daniel Pearl Foundation, founded in memory of the slain Wall Street Journal reporter whose widow, Marianne, Jolie portrayed in last year's A Mighty Heart; $100,000 apiece to Global Green USA and the Epidermolysis Bulloma Medical Research Foundation (the same group Courteney Cox and David Arquette are currently rallying their friends around) ; $20,000 to a Los Angeles art park; and $5,000 each to two orphanages Jolie visited.

And here's a preview of those 2007 returns: Pitt's Make It Right Foundation, which benefits the rebuilding process in New Orleans, raised $5 million, and Not On Our Watch, the group he cofounded with George Clooney, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle and producer Jerry Weintraub, has raised more than $9.3 million since it formed in May.

As for 2008... Pitt and Jolie are expecting their second biological child (or perhaps their second and third) together. The couple, who are reportedly villa-hunting in France, are also parents to Maddox, 6; Pax, 4; Zahara, 3; and Shiloh, 22 months.