Comment by jmclnx

>(including unrealized gains)

They wrote that whole article out just to make it all meaningless with 3 words in parenthesis.

"The plane crashed and everyone lived! (not including those who died)"

IDK what Bezos made as "income" last year but paper gains in asset values are not "income" for tax purposes, though some people might look at the increase in his wealth and call that money he "made" that year. But we don't have a wealth tax on a federal level at least.

It seems your article is saying the same sort of thing I already stated - "The share of taxes paid by the richest 1 percent (24 percent)", right?

You are talking about effective taxes rates, which are different. To discuss that, I would have liked to see a bit more detail in the article, like what the income sources were and the deductions and losses to offset gains. I think changes around capital gains and loans against equities could use some adjustments. The other taxes like payroll are basically moot as Bezos's payroll income is only about $90k per year anyways.

This post makes the mistake of counting unrealized gains as income. That's not how taxes or investments work. Unrealized gains are NOT income. That's how they mistakenly come up with the number that he pays less than 1% in income tax. Investments, in general, are not income (unless held less than 12 months or if they pay dividends).

Imagine you had to pay income taxes every year on the unrealized gains of your 401k, house, and car value. You too would be said to be paying a very low income tax rate. But again that's not how income taxes work because none of those things are income.

If Bezos were to sell those shares and actually realize those gains then he would be rightly taxed but that would also likely tank the stock as his 8% ownership is significant enough to drop the price drastically. 55% of Amazon is owned by 401k and other retirement accounts so if the price tanks average Americans take a huge hit.

Bezos does sell shares, all the time actually. You can see this in the SEC filings. And he is rightly taxed on those realized gains. But he's not going to sell all of his shares as that would be damaging to Amazon, the workers, retirement accounts, and his own investments.

Instead, the money stays in the company paying worker wages, buying new facilities, etc. This is even better for the economy because it keeps the funds in circulation. This generates even more tax revenue than if he did a 1 time sale of his investments. That's why unrealized gains don't get taxed, because its financially a worse outcome than keeping the money in circulation.

The top 10% is not even upper middle class in high COL areas.

$155k is a top 10% income.

Do you have the data for that? I was wondering about tax paid (as dollars not effective rate- I know effective tends to me lower for HNW individuals due to accountants and other financial professionals they can afford).

Bezos pays 40% too.

His assets are not income. Just like your assets are not taxed.

Ok, but he does that loan-against-assets hack!

Well the fact is that those loans eventually need to be paid, so at some point he will pay that 40% (unless he does the step-up basis hack when he dies)

Ok, but he should be paying annually like everyone else!

Well, technically he is, his assets, the company Amazon, pays a lot of taxes annually. The government views Amazon as a money printer, states get their sales taxes, and the federal government gets their income taxes. All of which originate with Amazon.

All of which is to say, that the uppe-middle/upper-class, the successful surgeon, is the one that needs to be paying more taxes to equilibriate society.

I'm someone who uses the same "loophole" the wealthy use to "avoid" paying taxes. Turns out you really only need around ~$100k to unlock it, and you still will pay ~0.5% interest over the overnight lending rate. But it's about as rock bottom as any non-united-states-government will get a dollar denominated loan for.

But it is not a tax dodging scheme. It's a tax deferral scheme wrapped in a risk-on loan package, that is used almost entirely to maintain ownership of a company rather than to defer taxes. On smaller scales you can use it to unlock money tied up in stocks, if you think the stock will keep going up (if the stock falls, you now might get margin called as well as coming out worse then just getting a regular loan).

That does not address the point. You say they should pay even more to address the idea that very few people pay most of the taxes, what is the logic here?

Wealth distribution is a false flag. Rain distribution across the globe is not equal, solar light distribution is not equal and they impact people's life more than wealth distribution. USA and the entire planet's population is at record high in living standards and wealth, but some people are still unhappy because not everything is perfectly equal and at zero entropy like the thermal death of the universe: this is more than illogical, it is just envy without limits.

I'm familiar with the concept of crabs in a bucket, yes. That's why I left New York and abandoned my rent controlled apartment to do so.