George Soros and Bezos have paid almost zero taxes

[Natalim]

In reality, the rich people are really those who are smart enough for paying fewer taxes, they are good at manipulating their records and adding some stuff to the business to minimize the taxes. They understand that taxes are the lifeblood of a country but if they can find some strategy to lower the taxes they'll do it.

We have regulators to audit their financial reports, if they are not in charge of tax evasion, then I guess they are not doing anything wrong.

By simply based on some data presented, I think that is not fair as we are not accountants and we only saw the tip of the issue.

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[1l1l11ll1l]

Though we think that Biden's tax plan will be a success, the reality is that there are still many holes that need to be closed. I don't know how much tax rates they managed to get from an uperclass like the multi billionaire mentioned above, but it's pretty bad considering they can get away with it easily, and I'm sure there's still a lot that we don't know and don't disclose to the public, imo.

[tyz]

I read this recently as well. Whereas with Soros and Bezos, it didn't surprise me. It surprised me much more with Buffett, because he has been an advocate for a long time, and has also publicly demanded several times that "his class", the super-rich, should be taxed more. And then, of all people, he is the one of the super-rich who pays the least taxes. This is exactly my sense of humor!
In general, however, it shows that the U.S. has a problem with taxation in general.

[bryant.coleman]

Though we think that Biden's tax plan will be a success, the reality is that there are still many holes that need to be closed. I don't know how much tax rates they managed to get from an uperclass like the multi billionaire mentioned above, but it's pretty bad considering they can get away with it easily, and I'm sure there's still a lot that we don't know and don't disclose to the public, imo.

Biden's tax plan will take the wealth away from the upper middle class and distribute it among the poor. The rich are not going to get affected, because they almost never sell their assets and take loans against the assets to cover the monthly expenses. In the end, the rich and the poor are happy about the Biden tax plan, while the middle class get royally screwed. The rise in corporate tax means that almost all the commodities and essentials will become costlier. Also, families with one or two children are at a disadvantage, as the new tax plan favors those who have a dozen or so children.

[DrBeer]

Why is the tax return hidden? It's hard for me to say, but are we talking about a business that pays taxes or an ultimate beneficiary? I am not familiar with the legislation of a particular state or states, I will say that in our country all data on the tax return of all citizens are legally open. But to be honest - for example, the largest businessmen declare income, but it is not indicative, the value of the assets they own and the turnover (profit, income, costs, taxes, ...) of their companies are more indicative.

There is no point in asking the tax returns of private companies to be made public. But IMO, there is nothing wrong, if we ask the tax returns for the individuals to be revealed to the public. At least they should reveal the annual income and the tax that was paid on this income. I don't want a detailed breakdown of the source of income. At least those who have a net wealth of $1 billion or more should reveal these figures. Ordinary people like us pay 30% or 40% of our salary as taxes. We have the right to know how much these people are paying.

With all due respect to you, I can assume that you are confusing the meaning of the words "income" and "fortune".
His income may be close to 0, but at the same time his state is growing, this is a normal situation. This is a rather subtle question, since for example, a person may own assets in other countries where he pays taxes by developing a business. This means that in the country where he is a resident (in this case, the United States), there are no grounds for paying taxes. But at the same time, having built a couple of factories, for example in Swaziland, his condition will grow, because these assets belong to him, but he will not pay a cent in the United States. This is a very primitive example of "optimization" of taxation, but this is how it works, and for this reason, many people who do not quite understand the essence, there is, in general, a reasonable question - "where are Bezos's taxes, because I pay them !? "

[shield132]

That wealth growth is a bit misleading.

Let's assume you have bought 1 million in BTC when it was at 3k and now you're up 10x times at 10 million, you har a $9million growth in assets but you didn't sell a dime, you shouldn't be taxed for those gains, right? Same for shares in a company, those are unrealized gains I doubt Buffet has sold 24billions of shares lately and probably the same is for almost everyone on that list.

That article is heavily biased, and I can't really take seriously any paper that has its main category of news labeled "racial justice", it's just another of those attempts to make the rich look bad and that we have to tax them as much s we can so that the new social paradise can be built. The wealth tax has failed miserably in Europe, France has tried it two times and the consequences have been so clear I doubt they will try it the third time, you simply lose more money than what you get.

As for the democrats, they also know the truth, if they tax the rich they will lose more money from capital outflow than they would make, so this whole taxation thing is just propaganda to get more votes for the poor class, and since obviously they can't hit those ones with taxes the only once they can fleece is the middle class, as usual.

This is right!
The problem here is the lack of education again! People don't know much about assets and when they hear that Jeff Bezos owns 99.0 Billion, they directly think that it's the paper money that he has saved somewhere.
Then comes Biden and states that rich people will pay higher taxes but in reality that doesn't happen and people have illogical expectations. All that politicians do is saying beautiful words that people want to hear.
People are addicted to beautiful lies and eternal hope.
The world belongs to rich, so, just saying that rich peopel will pay more than average people is a very funny lie. Especially if we consider that there are offshores for a reason, there are loopholes in every law and it's done for a reason!
Russians have some great verbs that really have place in our world:
1. Laws/rules are written for stupids!
2. Laws/rules are written to break!
3. Laws/rules are great when everyone protects it except you!

[ven7net]

Unfortunately, this is so and I do not see anything surprising in this, because it was clear even before the Democrats came to power in the United States. Everything is aimed at making the rich even richer at the expense of the middle class and manipulation in the market. But I don’t think that it will be so in the future, probably in the litter of the future this should radically change. But in the meantime, people will again observe financial injustice.

[tyz]

Though we think that Biden's tax plan will be a success, the reality is that there are still many holes that need to be closed. I don't know how much tax rates they managed to get from an uperclass like the multi billionaire mentioned above, but it's pretty bad considering they can get away with it easily, and I'm sure there's still a lot that we don't know and don't disclose to the public, imo.

Biden's tax plan will take the wealth away from the upper middle class and distribute it among the poor. The rich are not going to get affected, because they almost never sell their assets and take loans against the assets to cover the monthly expenses. In the end, the rich and the poor are happy about the Biden tax plan, while the middle class get royally screwed. The rise in corporate tax means that almost all the commodities and essentials will become costlier. Also, families with one or two children are at a disadvantage, as the new tax plan favors those who have a dozen or so children.

And don't forget where Biden (just like the Republicans) got their enormous campaign contributions. From the super-rich. He will go easy on them and largely burden the richer in the middle class, because why should the Democrats hurt themselves by alienating their best donors.

[Silberman]

may sound like your typical conspiracy theory but considering how these people can get away with just about anything due to their money and influence, it wouldn't be too far stretched to believe that some if not all, are the ones who sponsored politicians behind the scenes and put them in place so that these billionaires can control them at will.

It does sounds like a silly conspiracy theory. These people are not getting away with it , in fact they are giving more to the society. Look, the fact that they employed alot of people and keep on expanding their business to employ alot more actually benefit the country alot more compare with giving raw cash in form of taxes. It will takes years for the government to use that money to build some company that would benefit people by employing them.

Everybody should do their fair share for the country and these guys literally have done theirs which is why the country favours them by giving them better treatment.

While what you are saying is true in the sense these people generate jobs and wealth and this is why they are given preferential treatment at the same time they should pay some taxes, however we know this is incredibly difficult because it does not matter what kind of legislation is passed they have lawyers and accountants that will find a way to reduce the taxes they have to pay so this is something that cannot be solved and any attempt to do so will only introduce even more problems.

[fullhdpixel]

According to the research by ProPublica, the billionaires in the US saw their wealth increasing by $401 billion between 2014 and 2018. And they paid a total of $13.6 billion in income taxes during this period (which corresponds to a rate of 3.4%). An upper middle class family in high-tax states such as California and New York are required to pay close to 60% of their income as taxes, while these people are paying around 1/20th of that amount.

If people still believe in Biden and his stupid spending plans, then the future looks hopeless for the United States.

You know what was the initial idea for these type of people to not pay high federal taxes and then slowly begun to be zero? It is so that these people could provide something amazing for the nation so that they could benefit that way. A ton of workers, a lot of money, selling internationally to bring money to usa, basically when a nation has a company like amazon then they are doing better even without getting taxes from amazon.

But, what happened eventually? Because of how horrible working conditions are, and how much turnover there is, it didn't help anyone, and now slowly it is moving towards automation, which results with worse and worse working conditions because humans can't keep up with inhuman automation numbers. This caused people to either quit, or being paid way way less than poverty levels, so they got benefits from government and that is paid by tax payers. So what should be beneficial even without tax, became a burden on tax payers.

[Sithara007]

And don't forget where Biden (just like the Republicans) got their enormous campaign contributions. From the super-rich. He will go easy on them and largely burden the richer in the middle class, because why should the Democrats hurt themselves by alienating their best donors.

The burden will obviously fall on the middle class, because as per Biden's plan, anyone with a taxable income of more than $400,000 will witness a tax increase. Imagine this, the top earners is states like California and New York are all ready paying 55% to 60% of their income as tax. If you increase it any further, then these people will have only a small portion of their salary remaining after tax deductions. This is why I suggested lowering the tax rate, but at the same time removing all the tax exemptions.

[dimonstration]

Unfortunately, this is so and I do not see anything surprising in this, because it was clear even before the Democrats came to power in the United States. Everything is aimed at making the rich even richer at the expense of the middle class and manipulation in the market. But I don’t think that it will be so in the future, probably in the litter of the future this should radically change. But in the meantime, people will again observe financial injustice.

Since they know how to manipulate their taxes and take advantage of their previledges in business will make them stay away in huge taxes in legal way. But the justice should be fair for everyone. If they can take advantage by having businesses that helps the government we might be able to do oy too in a right time and plans we'll our businesses.

[Fortify]

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.

It is kind of sad how far America has let itself fall. Capitalism is the best choice, but it has to work for the benefit of the whole society because huge inequality just breeds resentment and anger. Sadly instead of paying their fair share - the super rich of the world hoard it, hide it and pay people to make laws that will protect it from a wider benefit to the average person. America is one of the biggest banking privacy havens in the world after they have forced other countries like Switzerland to divulge client details for catching tax evaders. Instead of using their huge might for the good of the world they have simply bullied the money from smaller offshore banking havens into their own banks while protecting the abusers behind it all. All these billionaires should be ashamed of the wealth they are sitting on instead of helping the poorest of their country men and women.

[AndySt]

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.

It is kind of sad how far America has let itself fall. Capitalism is the best choice, but it has to work for the benefit of the whole society because huge inequality just breeds resentment and anger. Sadly instead of paying their fair share - the super rich of the world hoard it, hide it and pay people to make laws that will protect it from a wider benefit to the average person. America is one of the biggest banking privacy havens in the world after they have forced other countries like Switzerland to divulge client details for catching tax evaders. Instead of using their huge might for the good of the world they have simply bullied the money from smaller offshore banking havens into their own banks while protecting the abusers behind it all. All these billionaires should be ashamed of the wealth they are sitting on instead of helping the poorest of their country men and women.

Capitalism has its good traits as well as its bad traits and social injustice is clearly not one of the good things. America has been building its economic policy for centuries in promoting entrepreneurship, private initiative, and making money, which in the case of large fortunes does not quite align with the interests of the poorest, and we are faced with the dilemma that economic growth seems to be stimulated by lower taxes, but the poor and middle class suffer from this tax cut, when the rich, who are not at all poor, become even richer by paying little or no taxes. And a sense of shame is not the best helper in overcoming these contradictions.

[Sithara007]

Capitalism has its good traits as well as its bad traits and social injustice is clearly not one of the good things. America has been building its economic policy for centuries in promoting entrepreneurship, private initiative, and making money, which in the case of large fortunes does not quite align with the interests of the poorest, and we are faced with the dilemma that economic growth seems to be stimulated by lower taxes, but the poor and middle class suffer from this tax cut, when the rich, who are not at all poor, become even richer by paying little or no taxes. And a sense of shame is not the best helper in overcoming these contradictions.

I don't think that capitalism need to be blamed here, because there is no other alternative. Capitalism means that the vast majority of the people may have comfortable living. On the other hand, socialism has failed terribly. You can look around and examine what happened in countries such as North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela. The reason why these billionaires escape from paying tax is not because of capitalism, but because of loopholes that were added in to the tax code by politicians who support them. There is no need to blame capitalism for it, because these loopholes are not a part of it.

[Silberman]

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.

It is kind of sad how far America has let itself fall. Capitalism is the best choice, but it has to work for the benefit of the whole society because huge inequality just breeds resentment and anger. Sadly instead of paying their fair share - the super rich of the world hoard it, hide it and pay people to make laws that will protect it from a wider benefit to the average person. America is one of the biggest banking privacy havens in the world after they have forced other countries like Switzerland to divulge client details for catching tax evaders. Instead of using their huge might for the good of the world they have simply bullied the money from smaller offshore banking havens into their own banks while protecting the abusers behind it all. All these billionaires should be ashamed of the wealth they are sitting on instead of helping the poorest of their country men and women.

It is not difficult to imagine why this is the case, do you remember what happened in Cyprus years ago? There was even a thread here in the forum about the people that had bank accounts there got their money confiscated in what can only be described as institutional stealing, it is likely that the reason the US is attacking tax havens but not doing anything to reduce the loopholes that allow the rich to do the same in the US is that they are thinking on doing the same at some point in the future.

[doomloop]

This is a problem that is being faced everywhere . Wherever you go there are always cases like this or similar to it, where the upper class are being favored more than average and the lowest. I don’t live in the US, but this is the same issue that we are facing here in my country, the rich guys are the only ones that are being favored by the government.

The whole taxes are being dumped on the middle class, while the upper class enjoys paying less and making more money. And sometimes, some of them even avoid paying taxes. And it gets worse when it’s a country where corruption is high, you can hardly do anything against them because they can and always buy their way out of it.

[teosanru]

I completely disagree with your notion!

1. Income tax is charged on "Incomes" earned during the year. When we say Incomes earned it's actually the incomes realized on which you pay taxes. A person needs to have cash to pay his income tax, if a law comes in that a person has to pay tax when he gains wealth and doesn't matter if he realized cash or not. People will always be short of cash  to pay taxes and it would hamper the middle class the most.

2. Wealth tax is charged on holding certain wealth. You cannot say that Income tax should be charged on the Unrealized Profits of people. Also if someone like Jeff Bezos sells all his assets today and realizes his wealth chances are he would be able to realize just 20% of his total wealth because stock prices would crash too much before enough buyers kick in. So how can you expect from him to pay taxes on this sort of wealth??

3. The idea of calculating taxes as a percentage of wealth built and presenting it to make it look like they paid less tax is absurd. Because this way Satoshi Nakamoto would be the biggest tax offender in history.
 
I don't think we can or we should blame them for this. This is the intelligent tax planning that they do with their assets to make sure they don't pay a dime in taxes. But does this means they will never pay tax? The answer is a plain No! Whenever they would sell off the shares of their companies they will have to pay taxes on them. Most of them might propose the idea of rich paying more taxes. but if a rich intelligently saves tax legally, how can you blame the rich for not paying enough taxes??
 

[bryant.coleman]

I don't think we can or we should blame them for this. This is the intelligent tax planning that they do with their assets to make sure they don't pay a dime in taxes. But does this means they will never pay tax? The answer is a plain No! Whenever they would sell off the shares of their companies they will have to pay taxes on them. Most of them might propose the idea of rich paying more taxes. but if a rich intelligently saves tax legally, how can you blame the rich for not paying enough taxes??

The example of Bill Gates was given in one of the previous posts. He never paid a penny in tax, despite owning around $100 billion worth of MSFT shares. The shares were transferred to Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and that means that these shares will never be taxed (because the foundation is classified as a charitable trust). The case of Bill Gates is known to everyone because it was publicized a lot. Other billionaires keep such transactions as secret. Nowadays charity trusts are one of the loopholes used to avoid tax.

These are the loopholes used by the super-rich to avoid taxes:

Source: https://www.topaccountingdegrees.org/taxes/

1. Put It in the Freezer: Trust Freezing- A way to transfer valuable assets to others (such as your children) while avoiding the federal estate tax.
2. Send It Overseas: Registering your business or putting your money in an account in another country with lower taxes.
3. Stock It Up in Options: By taking part of your compensation in stock options you can control when and if you pay taxes, since most options are only taxed when they are exercised
4. Play Shell Games with It: Companies that only exists on paper, allowing you to funnel money through it and avoid paying taxes.
5. Swap It Out: Equity swap - An agreement that allows 2 parties to exchange the gain and loss of assets without actually transferring ownership.
6. Play Dodgeball with It: Purchasing stock options, which sets the share price at a fixed rate, then borrowing money from an investment bank using the shares as collateral.
7. Go Corporate with It: 1. Channel wages through a nominal "corporation"; 2. Pay yourself an interest-free wage; 3. Claim expenses; 4. Reduce your income taxes.
8. Kick It Down the Road: You can put part of your payday in a deferred-compensation plan, instead of taking it all at once.
9. Give It Away: Charity trusts
10. Make It Luxurious: Spend at least 2 weeks of the year on your yacht, outfit it like a home, and categorize it as a second home for tax purposes. If the home's value appreciates over time, the profits from selling it can be considered capital gains and taxed at a lower rate than salary or other investment income.

[teosanru]

I don't think we can or we should blame them for this. This is the intelligent tax planning that they do with their assets to make sure they don't pay a dime in taxes. But does this means they will never pay tax? The answer is a plain No! Whenever they would sell off the shares of their companies they will have to pay taxes on them. Most of them might propose the idea of rich paying more taxes. but if a rich intelligently saves tax legally, how can you blame the rich for not paying enough taxes??

The example of Bill Gates was given in one of the previous posts. He never paid a penny in tax, despite owning around $100 billion worth of MSFT shares. The shares were transferred to Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and that means that these shares will never be taxed (because the foundation is classified as a charitable trust). The case of Bill Gates is known to everyone because it was publicized a lot. Other billionaires keep such transactions as secret. Nowadays charity trusts are one of the loopholes used to avoid tax.

These are the loopholes used by the super-rich to avoid taxes:

Source: https://www.topaccountingdegrees.org/taxes/

1. Put It in the Freezer: Trust Freezing- A way to transfer valuable assets to others (such as your children) while avoiding the federal estate tax.
2. Send It Overseas: Registering your business or putting your money in an account in another country with lower taxes.
3. Stock It Up in Options: By taking part of your compensation in stock options you can control when and if you pay taxes, since most options are only taxed when they are exercised
4. Play Shell Games with It: Companies that only exists on paper, allowing you to funnel money through it and avoid paying taxes.
5. Swap It Out: Equity swap - An agreement that allows 2 parties to exchange the gain and loss of assets without actually transferring ownership.
6. Play Dodgeball with It: Purchasing stock options, which sets the share price at a fixed rate, then borrowing money from an investment bank using the shares as collateral.
7. Go Corporate with It: 1. Channel wages through a nominal "corporation"; 2. Pay yourself an interest-free wage; 3. Claim expenses; 4. Reduce your income taxes.
8. Kick It Down the Road: You can put part of your payday in a deferred-compensation plan, instead of taking it all at once.
9. Give It Away: Charity trusts
10. Make It Luxurious: Spend at least 2 weeks of the year on your yacht, outfit it like a home, and categorize it as a second home for tax purposes. If the home's value appreciates over time, the profits from selling it can be considered capital gains and taxed at a lower rate than salary or other investment income.

See I'll keep it this way. Taxes are designed in a way that people are expected to pay it only when they utilize the benefit of that Income. Bill Gates did transfer all his shares to Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation but did he sold those shares to and used the "actual Bank Receipts" for his own personal benefit/ luxury? If someday this foundation is dissolved they will have to pay taxes and if the foundation sells the shares the proceeds will remain with the foundation and cannot be used by Bill Gates for his personal use, at least Legally!

Also, a few of these methods you have listed down are tax loopholes and are categorized under "TAX Avoidance" and not Tax planning unlike the previous one. It's obvious that people having more money can hire more intelligent and experienced accountants to set off their Taxes. Trust me if you hire an accountant tomorrow he will tell you 100 ways to go zero tax if you have even a small business. So, it's too communist to blame a billionaire for using tax planning techniques.

Also Loopholes aren't always intentional but the laws are so complex that loopholes are automatically formed. Trust me writing a law is much more difficult than you think.