6/11/21: Earlier this week, ProPublica published
documents revealing how much some of America’s wealthiest individuals paid in
taxes. The documents were leaked illegally. But if you are a taxpayer in good
standing, you should definitely take note of what these records show.
 |
Jeff Bezos' toy. |
Which is: if you were a billionaire, you’d be paying way less in taxes, percentage-wise, than you are now!
____________________
How would you like to pay only
3.3% in federal income taxes? If you were a billionaire, you could. And 0%
would be even better.
____________________
Among those whose records were exposed, we have such luminaries as Jeff Bezos, about to shoot himself into space on his own private rocket, named “Blue Origin,” Bill Gates (did he really hang out with Jeffrey Epstein), and Rupert Murdoch (who has his own network dedicated to running stories about how we can’t raise taxes on the rich because that would lead to communism). Between 2006 and 2018, Mr. Bezos’ wealth increased by $120 billion. On that increase he paid 1.09 percent in federal income tax.
As a reporter for The New York
Times explained,
“In 2011, Bezos reported so little income that he qualified for – and claimed –
a $4,000 child tax credit.”
In both 2016 and 2017, another billionaire, Carl Icahn, paid no federal income taxes. The records in ProPublica’s hands show that the 25 richest Americans paid, during a five year period, 2014-2018, $13.1 billion in taxes on $401 billion in wealth gained. That comes out to a little more than 3.3 percent.
I check my records. Last year,
my wife, a retired speech therapist, and I, a retired teacher, paid 9.1 percent
in federal income taxes.
POSTSCRIPT: Republicans in Congress react with fury at news of billionaires not paying any taxes.
And aim their fury at the I.R.S.
They demand an investigation into the leak of tax documents, but seem untroubled by the idea that the superrich are using a warped tax code to get out of paying their fair share. Or any share at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment