ProPublica has obtained a vast cache of IRS information showing how billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett pay little in income tax compared to their massive wealth — sometimes, even nothing. This is their report.
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.
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ProPublica has obtained a vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data on the tax returns of thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people, covering more than 15 years. The data provides an unprecedented look inside the financial lives of America’s titans, including Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg. It shows not just their income and taxes, but […]
It is hard to imagine anyone could make over a billion dollars per year. It would take me many lifetimes to make just one billion; and they do not pay much taxes, even during this pandemic when they should be paying a lot to support the rest of the hard working population who would never make even a million in their lifetimes.
This is a feature of the system, not a bug. It comes about when so called “representatives” are more loyal to the donor class than to the population as a whole. This has been an on going trend under both Democratic and Republican administrations for over 30 years. The swamp protects its own.