Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
The Almighty Buck Government Privacy United States

Tax Details of US Super-Rich Allegedly Leaked (bbc.com) 399

According to the BBC, details claiming to reveal how little U.S. billionaires pay in income tax have been leaked to investigative website ProPublica. From the report: ProPublica says it has seen the tax returns of some of the world's richest people, including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett. The website alleges Amazon's Mr Bezos paid no tax in 2007 and 2011, while Tesla's Mr Musk's paid nothing in 2018. The FBI and tax authorities are looking into the source of the leak. ProPublica said it was analyzing what it called a "vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data" on the taxes of the billionaires, and would release further details over coming weeks.

ProPublica said the richest 25 Americans pay less in tax -- an average of 15.8% of adjusted gross income -- than most mainstream US workers. The website said: "Using perfectly legal tax strategies, many of the uber-rich are able to shrink their federal tax bills to nothing or close to it." The wealthy, as with many ordinary citizens, are able to reduce their income tax bills via such things as charitable donations and drawing money from investment income rather wage income.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Tax Details of US Super-Rich Allegedly Leaked

Comments Filter:
  • It is wise to pay the amount of tax owed by law. Few (if any) pay more than required. Change the laws to change the tax these guys pay. But be careful that what you wish for may not be the outcome.
  • by RightSaidFred99 ( 874576 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2021 @07:24PM (#61467616)
    Sure, let's pretend people should pay taxes on money they haven't actually actualized yet. If I own 1M shares of stock and that stock goes from $10 to $20 but I don't sell any of it a given year guess how much in fucking taxes I pay? Yep - $0, which any non-rabble rouser knows.
    • by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2021 @07:35PM (#61467656) Journal

      Now, I can borrow against the increased value of those shares and spend the money. No taxes due, despite leveraging the increase in value into cash ("actualized").

      I don't do this like ordinary people, because I am a billionaire, so I don't have to pay the high interest rates that brokers demand when I borrow against the value of my shares. Instead, because it is larger amounts of money, I only have to pay the lowest of interest rates.

      • ...and...? Why do you think this is some great ill? You still have to pay it back and when you get the money from the stock (or any other source) to do so you pay taxes.
        • You still have to pay it back and when you get the money from the stock (or any other source) to do so you pay taxes.

          Not if you die first. Your heirs may have to pay estate duties (which will be reduced because of the outstanding loans), but no income taxes.

    • Jeff Bezos literally had no income in 2007 or 2011?

      Let's see

      In that year, Bezos, who filed his taxes jointly with his then-wife, MacKenzie Scott, reported a paltry (for him) $46 million in income, largely from interest and dividend payments on outside investments. He was able to offset every penny he earned with losses from side investments and various deductions, like interest expenses on debts and the vague catchall category of âoeother expenses.â

      Cool system.

      • Tax deductions can do that for you, if you've got a competent accountant.

      • A clever person would look and see if Bezos had some large offsetting charitable donation to lower his taxes. Holding a billion dollars in AMZ stock is not the same as earning a billion dollars from your job. Bezos pays taxes on shares sold, not shares held.

    • by Thaelon ( 250687 )

      It's really easy to tell here who didn't read the article because they say things like this in ignorance of the step-up in basis.

    • Yeah, that's definitely how it works in its absolute simplicity. Jeff Bezos is building a fucking rocket to space because he has zero point zero dollars in his bank account because all his wealth is tied up in stocks. He's really just a pauper in disguise!

      It's all fucking bullshit and you know it. These people are doing things only billionaires can do because those stocks are a form of wealth that the banks recognize as collateral. We KNOW they're worth something, so don't try to pretend that they aren't. S

  • by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve ( 949321 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2021 @07:41PM (#61467676)
    So, back in the early 2000s, I had this job working for the US office of a European company most of you have never heard of. For a while, I reported directly to our office's manager, a lady I will call Mary (not her real name). There were maybe 3 or 4 managers under Mary, so while I reported to her, I wasn't a manager but I had the same status as the other managers did who were under her. So because she was my direct supervisor, I would sometimes have to go into her office and keep her up to date on things or ask her for help. For some reason, she would sometimes confide in me. The best way I could describe it is we sort of had an old sister (her) younger brother (me) working relationship. So she would tell me things about her life, like the following:

    1) Her husband was high in management in a local company Cisco eventually bought and he apparently was making really big money. She was doing pretty well herself, but clearly her husband was just in a whole other league salary wise from the rest of us because....
    2) They owned a 2nd home. For vacations. The only person I personally knew besides her who owned a 2nd home was a doctor friend of mine. And he was doing very well financially.
    3) Her family's hobby - no joke - was hot air ballooning. Do you know what kind of people do hot air ballooning as a hobby? Rich people.
    4) They had a nanny. Mostly this was because hubby didn't like taking care of their kids and didn't have time for it and her job took up enough time that they simply had to have help since hubby was pretty much providing zero help there. So their nanny was an illegal immigrant from Russia in her mid to late 20s. Wanna bet that they "forget" to report what they paid the nanny on their yearly tax returns to Uncle Sam?

    So you've read this and I bet that at no point did you think "Boy, these are exactly the people who need a free SUV". But they got one. Mary also told me this. So at the time, there was some law that was designed to help small business people buy trucks for their businesses. So if you were maybe a contractor, you could buy a truck for your business and fully deduct the value off your taxes. I think you had to buy it outright to do this - I don't think you could finance it. Guess what else is legally a "truck"? An SUV! So Mary's husband set up some kind of sham company he owned, bought an SUV outright "for the company" (wink wink) and deducted the full value off his income taxes as a "business expense" for his company. To be honest with you, I got pretty tired of having all that kind of insight into some rich person's "problems" and after she was eventually given a very generous severance package to leave the company, I lost track of her by choice.
    • by DrMrLordX ( 559371 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2021 @08:08PM (#61467752)

      In other words, that law helping businesses buy trucks was designed rather poorly. Bad laws = bad results.

      Also those kids are gonna have problems in life. Guaranteed.

      • How many of the middle class have used home businesses* and their deductions to lower their taxes as well as get stuff they normally couldn't?

        *Back in my era it was things like Shaklee and the like.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Wednesday June 09, 2021 @02:53AM (#61468382) Homepage Journal

        It wasn't badly designed, it was working as intended.

        This is how politicians funnel money to rich people (themselves included). Create a law that is superficially designed to help the people who elected them, but is actually a massive bung for them and their pals.

        • You're missing the best part - taxes that they don't have to pay. That's why this article is weeping over effective tax rates instead of measures that actually matter. Congress is loaded with wealthy people who want more government revenue but don't want to pay it themselves. You won't see Pelosi or Warren supporting bills that would cause them to pay more in taxes, but you will see them push for higher income taxes because they don't really care how much of their salary has to be paid back, their wealth
    • Deducting the value of a BUSINESS expense, like a truck, doesn't make it free!

      I buy a $60K SUV as a business expense, I depreciate the expense and 'poof' my taxable income is reduced by $60K, the value of the deduction. If I was paying 33% tax rate, that nets me $20K in tax savings - making the $60K SUV cost 'only' $40K.

      I pay $60K for the SUV, I save $20K on taxes, so the truck only cost $40K.

      Now, play the same game with a 95% tax rate - you'd pay $5K for a $100K SUV after you deduct 95% of the purchase pri

    • If they falsely claimed a business deduction, turn them in - it's already a crime, and your keeping it a secret makes you complicit.

      To qualify as a deduction the SUV (truck) needed to exceed a certain cost and weight threshold - I remember seeing a poster explaining this at the local Range Rover dealership.

      Do you think contractors shouldn't be able to deduct their trucks?

      This reminds me about the whole private airplane argument around 2008 - somehow business owners deducting business jets as business expens

    • Owning a second home isn't nearly as unusual as you seem to think it is. Countless families own 'cabins by a lake' or 'cabins in the mountains', an RV or a boat with a sleeping compartment - btw, the boat and RV qualify as 'second hones' and the interest paid on them, like your primary residence, is deductible, to a certain threshold.

  • by S_Stout ( 2725099 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2021 @07:56PM (#61467722)
    Then they would do one of two things: 1. They would kill their citizenship and leave the country. Bill Gates has said he would do this. 2. They would have to sell assets like stocks to pay the tax bill. This would decimate the stock market. Now I agree that they should not be as wealthy as they are, at a certain point it's theft from a government that has given then every break imaginable, but a lot of their money does go back into the economy in the form of job creation and propping up financial markets.
    • Then they would do one of two things: 1. They would kill their citizenship and leave the country

      I hate to break it to you, but the US has an "exit tax". It's not so simple to get rid of your citizenship and leave the country without paying a lot of tax, unless all your assets are already overseas and you don't plan on ever returning (even for a visit).

    • Then they would do one of two things: 1. They would kill their citizenship and leave the country. Bill Gates has said he would do this. 2. They would have to sell assets like stocks to pay the tax bill. This would decimate the stock market. Now I agree that they should not be as wealthy as they are, at a certain point it's theft from a government that has given then every break imaginable, but a lot of their money does go back into the economy in the form of job creation and propping up financial markets.

      You know other countries have wealth taxes, right? I doubt Bill Gates said this, but let me tell you something about Billionaires...they lie and they lie often...remember our last president? How about Bloomberg? How about all the lies Bill Gates has told, both about Microsoft as well as his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein?

      By your logic, billionaires would ONLY exist in countries with favorable tax rates. There are billionaires in nearly every European country.

      If you taxed the wealthy more, here

  • by Vandil X ( 636030 ) on Tuesday June 08, 2021 @08:11PM (#61467762)
    Comparison is the thief of happiness.

    Someone will always have more than you, someone will always have less than you.

    Don't be concerned with the portion size your neighbor has in their bowl, just be concerned if they have a bowl or not, and if there's a portion in it.
  • Understand this (Score:2, Informative)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 )

    ...this speaks to the incompetence and corruption of our political leaders, nothing else.

    Don't let yourself get sucked into being a class-warfare tool for ardent Marxists.

    "The rich should pay more...because they can!"
    That's convenient bullshit. Don't buy it.
    When's the last time you paid more for something than you had to? Because if you're sitting in EU or US I guarantee that to most of the rest of the world YOU ARE RICH.

  • by waspleg ( 316038 ) on Wednesday June 09, 2021 @07:35AM (#61468844) Journal

    Warren Buffett, in particular, famously said [youtube.com] he pays lower taxes than his secretary.

    Unlike the rest of them, he has actually tried to do something about [cnn.com] it too.

Think of it! With VLSI we can pack 100 ENIACs in 1 sq. cm.!

Working...