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Comment by kevmo | Hacker News Reader

Be better if he just paid taxes.

> Bezos’s annual reported income during these years of $832 million put him only at number 15. He paid an effective tax rate of 23.2%; as we’ve previously reported, Bezos had so little income in a couple of recent years that he was able to pay $0 in federal income taxes in those periods.

https://www.propublica.org/article/americas-top-15-earners-a...

I always like how good old Warren Buffett is calling for high earners to be taxed more, yet he never seems to show up on any of these high earner lists...

He doesn't tend to show up in the lists because he pays himself relatively little (compared to other billionaires). Between 2014-18 he had income of $125m, and paid tax of $23.7m[1]. That's still lower than the average American absolute tax rate, but way higher than most other billionaires. So he's a bit less of a sensational headline than his contemporaries.

His wealth growth of $24.3bn is untaxed through those years, he presumably left those assets in Berkshire Hathaway where he'd personally not generate a tax bill for them. Eventually Buffet, or more likely his inheritors, will sell the Berkshire Hathaway assets, and should pay a monumental tax bill on them.

[1] https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trov...

Why would they ever sell anything when they can just use them as collateral for loans and avoid ever paying taxes.

How is that inconsistent?

Because the narrative being developed around him is that he is such a selfless guy, humble midwestern values, wants good for America, yet he structures his affairs in a way that he pays as little tax as possible and would be largely unaffected by increased income tax...

From my understanding, his income would be from capital gains, and he does advocate for increasing capital gains tax rates.

>as we’ve previously reported, Bezos had so little income in a couple of recent years that he was able to pay $0 in federal income taxes in those periods.

This is the part people are bothered by.

Regardless of why, billionaires should never be paying $0 in federal income taxes. Our tax code and the people finding loopholes in it should not do this.

Executives should not be able to be "unpaid" for years because they're getting tax advantaged stock deals.

Nobody should be able to have that much wealth and have a year with no taxes.

If you are the human at the end of the line of ownership that ultimately benefits from assets, you should be charged ordinary income as you extract from those assets.

The only people who should owe $0 in federal taxes are those earning less than a full time minimum wage salary during that tax year, with no exceptions for folks who magically seem to find millions of dollars to spend during a year that they "earned" $0.

> paying $0 in federal income taxes

> a year with no taxes

These are two very different things, and the former does not imply the latter.

Taxes -> Uncle Sam -> Some Politician Pockets -> Dumbass projects, pointless initiatives [sometimes fueled by lobbying] -> Maybe some of it finally towards underprivileged communities with a 25% chance?

Donating directly to the communities removes all this mess and gets money where it needs to go.

I guess your ridiculous caricature of government spending is a product of a failing educational system.

This is also one of the problems, that will never be fixed aslong as taxes are kind of negotiable for ones above the citizenship/law and people get distracted by this kind of altruist-washing (which can also be a way to dodge taxes).

> Taxes -> Uncle Sam -> Some Politician Pockets -> Dumbass projects.

The issue you highlight is not taxes per se but the political sphere, which can be solved seperately. Rejecting taxes and not acknowledging the root problem _makes you part of the problem_ and useful for the ones profiting from it.

OT: Its ridiculous, that ppl _who voted for 1 of 2 corrupt parties complain about their stolen votes_. This kind of idiocy could also be a useful product of a failed educational systems maybe combined with Murrica-first delusions.

I’m a huge fan of long lasting infrastructure like schools, internet, green energy, public transport etc. this stuff always pays off for future generations.

We all want to do it that way then.. I will choose my own ways to spend the tax dollars as I see fit? Too bad we don’t live in such a society

It would be quite interesting to see what got funded, if they let us pick projects to fund while doing our taxes. It might even be a worthwhile experiment to do; let tax payers decide how to allocate, say, 10% of their taxes.

While graft certainly exists to at least some degree, the conclusion still doesn't follow from the premise.

What is with this 'help me, but not like this' attitude?

Of all taxes paid, where will the government allocated funds go? Its not like the government is running out of money to not fund this.

But then it wouldn’t be discretionary and make headlines. Won’t someone think of the billionaires’ egos?!

Meh, it would just go to the military.

At least this way he gets to feel good about it.

In the (great) scenario that Bezos spends his money to do good, he likely spends his dollars more efficiently than the government does.

"His" doing a lot of lifting in this comment.

And I strongly disagree with the premise we should let our capitalist and genetic lottery winners solely determine what problems society needs solving.

Yes, but we need to change the rules to get that. IMO a wealth tax would be difficult to avoid.

What are the unpaid taxes he owes? Tax evasion is a felony, go turn him and collect your reward.

Tax avoidance is not a crime. Evasion is. All these billionaires know how to skirt the rules.

If they're skirting the rules, that's just called following the rules. Why should we expect billionaires to file their taxes suboptimally? The rules are what need changing.

I personally feel a moral obligation to pay my fair share of taxes, especially if I expect my community to be a place I want to be. I could itemize more stuff and pay less but I'm in a position where I can still live comfortably taking the base deduction. In my opinion ultra rich people should be doing the same whether the rules change or not.

How do you decide what your fair share is though? Do you not take any deductions, even the standard deduction? I'm happy to pay my taxes in full too, but I pay my rate for what they say my income is, including applicable deductions to that income. That's what the billionaires do too. They just have way more tools available to them.

The "ultra rich" likely have a different perspective into how tax dollars are continually squandered and abused, which tempers their desire to give it away to some of the most inefficient and corrupt organizations on the planet.

If you feel so strongly about giving your money away, nothing stops you from writing a check to your favorite causes.

Yes- that's why people in the comments keep griping about how little tax he has to pay

Well, but the complaint is "Bezos should pay his taxes". And we've now established that he has. So... To the comment you replied to's point: we should be upset at the tax code not at people who (as we've established) are probably following the law.

OK, a charitable reading is that two things are being said:

Bezos should pay a fair amount of taxes ie. we ought to close loopholes and raise the rates for billionaires

& 2. Bezos should pay a fair amount of taxes ie. by using legal loopholes and lobbying the govt. for lower taxes, he is acting immoraly and should stop doing so

Both of which I believe is what's meant but are harder to make into a pithy slogan

My point in my earlier comment is that I don't agree with #2. He pays what the government says his "fair share" of taxes are, and why would we expect him to pay any more than that? I bet every one of us here pays exactly what we owe in taxes and not a cent more. That includes taking tax deductions. Even if you take no deductions, you're given a free $13k deduction on your taxable income.

Obviously in some theoretical moral sense billionaires are underpaying. But what's the income level you need to cross before you should willfully avoid tax deductions and ways of avoiding taxes. Now codify that into the law in some way.

Hey yeah, I agree with you, that's the useful thing to do. Tbh think you're rationally right about this point.

I just also think that Bezos in particular is underpaying and screaming into the void at him is fun and ok

And it’s only evasion if you (or someone else) tried it once before and it was ruled abusive. If enough money is at stake, you can go a long way using novel tax schemes to avoid paying taxes long enough to profit, even with civil penalties. Billionaire tax management is a whole ‘nother world.

All the billionaires pay lots of money to advisers who will arrange their finances for them.

I bet most billionaires couldn't even name half the companies they control, because they're all shell companies for shuffling funds overseas.

Are they not paying their taxes or deferring? Because, whatever billionaires do, you can do too. It's legal.

Have you ever taken a tax deduction?

Why are you avoiding taxes if so?

They aren't skirting anything. If you want to get rid of charitable deductions then advocate for that. People are attacking billionaires because the have unpalatable policy positions.

> Tax avoidance is not a crime. Evasion is. All these billionaires know how to skirt the rules.

The corrupt politicians they pay off insert these loopholes, or tax avoidance wouldn't be a thing.

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