“In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world’s richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011. In 2018, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, also paid no federal income taxes.”
“Michael Bloomberg managed to do the same in recent years. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn did it twice. George Soros paid no federal income tax three years in a row.”
“The results are stark. According to Forbes, those 25 people saw their worth rise a collective $401 billion from 2014 to 2018. They paid a total of $13.6 billion in federal income taxes in those five years, the IRS data shows. That’s a staggering sum, but it amounts to a true tax rate of only 3.4%.”
“No one among the 25 wealthiest avoided as much tax as Buffett, the grandfatherly centibillionaire. That’s perhaps surprising, given his public stance as an advocate of higher taxes for the rich. According to Forbes, his riches rose $24.3 billion between 2014 and 2018. Over those years, the data shows, Buffett reported paying $23.7 million in taxes. That works out to a true tax rate of 0.1%, or less than 10 cents for every $100 he added to his wealth.”
“Consider Bezos’ 2007, one of the years he paid zero in federal income taxes. Amazon’s stock more than doubled. Bezos’ fortune leapt $3.8 billion, according to Forbes, whose wealth estimates are widely cited. How did a person enjoying that sort of wealth explosion end up paying no income tax?”
I don’t know about you, but I sure as shit ain’t getting a near 0% tax rate.
So yes, it’s fiscally responsible to give them a tax break.
“Inequality has remained persistently high for decades, and a new report shows just how stark the divide is between the richest and poorest people on the planet.”
“The 2022 World Inequality Report, a huge undertaking coordinated by economic and inequality experts Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman, was the product of four years of research and produced an unprecedented data set on just how wealth is distributed.”
““The world is marked by a very high level of income inequality and an extreme level of wealth inequality,” the authors wrote.”
“The data serves as a complete rebuke of the trickle-down economic theory, which posits that cutting taxes on the rich will “trickle down” to those below, with the cuts eventually benefiting everyone. In America, trickle-down was exemplified by President Ronald Reagan’s tax slashes. It’s a theory that persists today, even though most research has shown that 50 years of tax cuts benefits the wealthy and worsens inequality.”"
“We find that major tax cuts for the rich push up income inequality, as measured by the top
1% share of pre-tax national income. The size of the effect is substantial: on average, each
major tax cut results in a rise of 0.8 percentage points in top 1% share of pre-tax national
income. The effect holds in both the short and medium term. Turning our attention to
economic performance, we find no significant effects of major tax cuts for the rich. More
specifically, the trajectories of real GDP per capita and the unemployment rate are unaffected
by significant reductions in taxes on the rich in both the short and medium term.
Our results have important implications for current debates around the economic
consequences of taxing the rich, as they provide causal evidence that supports the growing
pool of evidence from correlational studies that cutting taxes on the rich increases top income
shares, but has little effect on economic performance (Lee and Gordon, 2005; Piketty et al.,
2014; Roine et al., 2009). They also align with the causal findings in Rubulino and
Waldenstrom (2020), but provide stronger and more generalizable conclusions, as our
approach allows us to move beyond looking at tax changes in only handful of selected
countries.
There are several potentially fruitful avenues for future research that come out of our analysis.
While our choice of dependent variable (including both capital and labour income) makes it
less likely the results are being driven by tax shifting or avoidance, we do not specifically test
the mechanisms at work. Follow up research could therefore assess whether the macroeconomic effects we find are being driven by the mechanism outlined in Piketty et al. (2014), which is that lower taxes on top incomes induce the rich to bargain more aggressively to increase their own rewards, to the direct detriment of those lower down the income distribution. The analysis could also be extended outside of the OECD to see if the findings hold in countries with lower fiscal capacity. Lastly, from a policy perspective, it would also be
important to understand more about the extent to which individuals’ attitudes to taxing the
rich are influenced (or not) by the provision of new information about its economic
consequence”
Why do you post articles that aren’t really relevant? Since you have a thing for Elon. Let’s use Elon.
What was Elon’s income in 2018? We pay taxes on income. Once you answer that, you’ll understand why he didn’t pay taxes.
Your article going on about stock increases which have zero to do with taxes. So who cares if he’s wealth went up? Silly argument that isn’t relevant since we tax income.
Tax cuts are needed for the rich since they overpay their share. The tax burden should be equal.
Why do you post articles that aren’t really relevant?
Looks like you didn’t actually read, otherwise you would have been able to understand the relevance. I highlighted the important bits and even that wasn’t enough for you to understand.
Since you have a thing for Elon. Let’s use Elon.
Why is it always with the insults and cherypicking with you? Grow the fuck up.
I read through what you posted and it’s talking about stock increases which has zero to do with income tax. As such I lost interest since it never talked about the topic.
So once again what was elons income for 2018 since your article said he paid no taxes. I know the answer and it’s pretty obvious. So what did he earn since that’s what we pay taxes on.
Except when it comes to giving tax breaks to the rich.
The wealthy pay more than their fair share. So yes, it’s fiscally responsible to give them a tax break.
“In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world’s richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011. In 2018, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, also paid no federal income taxes.”
“Michael Bloomberg managed to do the same in recent years. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn did it twice. George Soros paid no federal income tax three years in a row.”
“The results are stark. According to Forbes, those 25 people saw their worth rise a collective $401 billion from 2014 to 2018. They paid a total of $13.6 billion in federal income taxes in those five years, the IRS data shows. That’s a staggering sum, but it amounts to a true tax rate of only 3.4%.”
“No one among the 25 wealthiest avoided as much tax as Buffett, the grandfatherly centibillionaire. That’s perhaps surprising, given his public stance as an advocate of higher taxes for the rich. According to Forbes, his riches rose $24.3 billion between 2014 and 2018. Over those years, the data shows, Buffett reported paying $23.7 million in taxes. That works out to a true tax rate of 0.1%, or less than 10 cents for every $100 he added to his wealth.”
“Consider Bezos’ 2007, one of the years he paid zero in federal income taxes. Amazon’s stock more than doubled. Bezos’ fortune leapt $3.8 billion, according to Forbes, whose wealth estimates are widely cited. How did a person enjoying that sort of wealth explosion end up paying no income tax?”
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/propublica/
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/forbes/
I don’t know about you, but I sure as shit ain’t getting a near 0% tax rate.
“Inequality has remained persistently high for decades, and a new report shows just how stark the divide is between the richest and poorest people on the planet.”
“The 2022 World Inequality Report, a huge undertaking coordinated by economic and inequality experts Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman, was the product of four years of research and produced an unprecedented data set on just how wealth is distributed.”
““The world is marked by a very high level of income inequality and an extreme level of wealth inequality,” the authors wrote.”
“The data serves as a complete rebuke of the trickle-down economic theory, which posits that cutting taxes on the rich will “trickle down” to those below, with the cuts eventually benefiting everyone. In America, trickle-down was exemplified by President Ronald Reagan’s tax slashes. It’s a theory that persists today, even though most research has shown that 50 years of tax cuts benefits the wealthy and worsens inequality.”"
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-bad-is-inequality-trickle-down-economics-thomas-piketty-economists-2021-12
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/business-insider/
https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/107919/1/Hope_economic_consequences_of_major_tax_cuts_published.pdf
TL;DR: Tax cuts for the rich are a failure, they hurt the average tax payer by increasing wealth disparity.
Why do you post articles that aren’t really relevant? Since you have a thing for Elon. Let’s use Elon.
What was Elon’s income in 2018? We pay taxes on income. Once you answer that, you’ll understand why he didn’t pay taxes.
Your article going on about stock increases which have zero to do with taxes. So who cares if he’s wealth went up? Silly argument that isn’t relevant since we tax income.
Tax cuts are needed for the rich since they overpay their share. The tax burden should be equal.
Looks like you didn’t actually read, otherwise you would have been able to understand the relevance. I highlighted the important bits and even that wasn’t enough for you to understand.
Why is it always with the insults and cherypicking with you? Grow the fuck up.
I read through what you posted and it’s talking about stock increases which has zero to do with income tax. As such I lost interest since it never talked about the topic.
So once again what was elons income for 2018 since your article said he paid no taxes. I know the answer and it’s pretty obvious. So what did he earn since that’s what we pay taxes on.
Removed by mod