Jeff Bezos Skipped Paying Federal Income Tax Twice, Elon Musk Paid None in 2018
New information is coming out about how the wealthiest people are paying taxes – if at all.
ProPublica obtained IRS data on tax returns from the nation’s wealthiest people and revealed some shocking data about some of the most wealthy billionaires in the nation.
Click inside to read more…
According to the report, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, now the world’s richest man, did not pay any federal income taxes in 2007, and then did it again in 2011.
At the same time, Tesla’s Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, also paid no federal income taxes.
Michael Bloomberg also managed to do the same thing in recent years. George Soros also paid no federal income tax for three years in a row.
“Taken together, it demolishes the cornerstone myth of the American tax system: that everyone pays their fair share and the richest Americans pay the most. The IRS records show that the wealthiest can — perfectly legally — pay income taxes that are only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions, if not billions, their fortunes grow each year,” the report begins.
According to the report, the median American household earns about $70,000 annually and pays 14% in federal taxes.
Billionaires amass their wealth from assets like stock and property which are not deemed taxable income unless sold. And according to Forbes data, the 25 richest people saw their worth rise from $401 billion from 2014 to 2018. They paid a total of $13.6 billion in federal income taxes, according to the IRS data, resulting in a true tax rate of only 3.4%. For a full breakdown of the numbers, head to ProPublica.
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