The taxes (what, 20% capital gains?) seems an excellent deal for the ecosystem where he grew his company: a stable political system, strong asset protection enforced by strict laws, an educated workforce in a relatively unpolluted environment, etc.
(And another 7.9% to WA under governor Inslee's December 2016 proposal — which, to be clear, has not actually become law.)
Edit: Why downvote a question? I appreciate the answers, and suspect I'm not the only interested party.
No. Capital gains aren't income.
Ordinary income = salary/wages, bonuses, commissions, etc.
Capital gains are income, but short-term (within a year) are taxed at ordinary income rates, while long-term (greater than a year) are charged at special capital gains tax rate.
It is even possible to pay 0% federal rate on sale of stock, I did it on my 2016 return.
Up to the top of the 15% bracket, yes, or $37,950 in total income for single earners in 2017 ($75,900 joint). It's easy to pay little in long-term cap. gains taxes if you are retired (or unemployed) with a cheap-to-moderate lifestyle.
But not possible for ~$1 billion in gains, like Bezos' sale :-).
Quite possible given enough trust lawyers and accountants. Mitt Romney managed to own a lot of his stock in his Roth IRA. The PayPal gang is famous for paying almost zero taxes though the same tricks. Yes, you dont get to spend it until retirement, but he isnt spending the billion, he is just reinvesting it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-directed_IRA#Permitted_in...
> IRA funds are allowed to be invested in private companies. ... The IRS puts restrictions on private equity investments that can be made by an IRA. It cannot purchase stock that the IRA holder already owns. ... In most cases, neither the IRA holder nor any disqualified persons to the plan can be employed by the company while the IRA has an equity position in that company.
If billionaires could do this, they would be doing it all the time. And the IRS would be screaming about it. Instead, they're stuck with higher risk options like illegal tax evasion or just paying the tax they owe.
Also, 100% + 0.01%^25 is still more than the sum loaned. And realistically, the interest rate must be higher than 0.01% annually. Sure, you could invest it over 25 years and theoretically beat the interest floor, but this adds a lot of unnecessary risk. When you've already won the game, I think paying the 25% in tax for a guaranteed cash return is worth it over dabbling in high risk, gray area legality tax avoidance.
Consult a qualified tax professional and legal council.
The recent upsurge of counterfeit products are evidence that Amazon is abusing its market power to the point of harming consumers.
It looks like they may have 44% of internet retail by public companies; and that's big, but it doesn't include private companies, and it doesn't fit my definition of a monopoly. It is certainly large enough that they should be scrutinized and attempts to increase share through prohibited practices should result in enforcement actions.
My point is meant to compare antitrust enforcement to the other mechanisms that are viewed by some as necessary to prevent large corporations from causing negative externalities.
Arguably if proper antitrust enforcement had been done in the finance industry, then no firms would have become too big to fail and all of the perverse incentives underscored by regulators post 2008 could have been avoided.
The problem is that since our regulatory state rewards size, there is a strong incentive to become large and hence too big to fail. As Amazon becomes a bigger and bigger part of the economy, it could start using the same rent-seeking tactics that financial firms used in 2008 to get major corporate welfare.
Amazon needs to take full responsibility for counterfeiting. I'm tempted to charge back certain purchases instead of going through the normal highly annoying process.
Being able to return an item no questions asked is not an appropriate remedy for getting a counterfeit product. It's a major hassle to box something back up and return it, and Amazon does not have a good solution for situations when the product that arrives is completely broken or is total junk/DOA.
Joining a class action lawsuit usually takes no action at all, but some action is required to opt-out.
So you've basically just said your been burned enough to do precisely nothing about it.
Now, if you were willing to initiate a lawsuit, whether class- or direct-action, that would be saying something meaningful.
And at any rate, most of the money will probably go for an airport that will never be used in some influential senator's state.
The Commerce Clause that protects his sales from state sales tax and made his mail-older company competitive against local stores made him a bundle too.
Most Federal tax revenue is spent on military (low gas prices for Amazon deliveries) and entitlements, not infrastructure projects.
If he was under the $37,950 mark, his Long Term Capital Gains rate would have been 0%
So if you enjoy the stable political system, strong asset protection, your free education, and relatively unpolluted environment it might be time to add Jeff Bezos to your Christmas card list to thank him for funding all that for you.
Found some data: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_Uni...
Top 20% owned 93% of wealth in 2014, and I don't see why that number wouldn't go up.
It's a bit harder to find numbers for income, though.