No one is really cheating....they all utilize the 80,000 pages of federal tax code to their advantage. They pay accountants who are experts on the code, and everything is legit.
So unless some idiot wants to dump the 80,000 pages and go to a standardized 10-percent tax, with no credits and zero out all of the hundreds of thousands of angles....I don’t see this changing.
Getting to some point where everyone pays their fair share....means that 50-percent of Americans go from paying zero....to paying something, and way too much money in the federal pot, which they would just build a thousand bridges a year to ‘nowhere’.
I can sum it up for you. The best way to avoid taxes while making tons of money is to donate heavily to the Dims in power.
How does one get past the AMT? Alternative Minimum Tax?......Asking for a friend....................
Leftist politicians are becoming filthy rich. Multimillionaires with 3 or more multimillion dollar mansions.
That is some amazing loopholes.
Maybe they should do a “study” on how the average middle class taxpayer gets raped.
I’m sure they don’t want THAT story to get leaked.
Quote shows the stupidity and grasping thievery motivations of the author.
It is an INCOME tax, not a WEALTH tax. The tax code specifically defines the income to be taxed and all try to pay only what they owe under the LAW. We are a republic of laws not of grasping thievery.
WB = 19%
JB=23%
MB=3%
EM=30%
Musk needs to higher Bloomberg's accountant.
To all
This is all part of a propaganda run-up to taxing wealth as well as income. The Rats have been salivating about a “national wealth tax” for decades.
Remember “You’ll own nothing and be happy !”
There was an article on Bob Kraft receiving a Bentley from his friends on his 80th birthday showing appreciation for him as a person and the things he has done.
Almost all of the comments were negative. People don’t understand the sin of envy.
Wealth is simply not money and not income. What Bezos owns is a bunch of server farms, warehouses, goods, vehicles and offices. While the stock market has arbitrarily increased the supposed cash value of this stuff, he still has pretty much what he had before. Only by selling stock, or having Amazon pay a dividend, can Bezos turn his wealth of physical things into cash income.
Furthermore, Amazon is paying property tax on all these physical things, every year. However, the value of Amazon stock is much greater than their market value individually, which is the basis for property tax.
btt
Now I know why those super rich people want to impose extremely high taxes on the folks. They themselves won’t be paying those taxes. WE will.
I’m not trying to defend billionaires by any means, because I believe they should pay taxes like everyone else. But, the tax code is one of the problems, and it was the government that made it possible for the rich to avoid taxation. The questions should be directly pointed at Congress.
Number of commentors expressing outrage that Pro_Publica illegally obtained and is publishing private tax info — zero.
We need to eliminate all the loopholes and simplify our tax system such that they send us a postcard of what we owe....we can either pay up or make an appointment to argue it if we disagree.
Commies don’t mention that the entire US Senate does the same thing.
Sub-intelligent people write and vote into law tax codes that allow billionaires to avoid income taxes. Then they whine that people smarter than them are using the codes exactly as the codes are written. These people are idiots of the first water.
I’ll bet that every one of the authors is a moocher on some sort of rent-seeking NGO.
This is why I always do my taxes in the bedroom. I know that our rulers believe the government should be kept out of the bedroom.
The progressive income tax is not designed to tax wealth, it’s designed to prevent the accumulation of wealth.
Unless we move the system to an EXCLUSIVE ‘consumption tax’ system, the truly wealthy will always be able to ‘work the system’. Every provision in the MASSIVE tax code has a bodyguard of lobbyists, lawyers and CPAs to protect it.
What would and does scare me would be for the USofA to follow the Europeans into the doubled-up scheme of having both Income and consumption (aka VAT) Taxes. This would really give the Swamp true power for social justice taxation. UGLY!
IRCC Congress enacts and the president signs the tax laws. It is the ultimate hypocrisy for politicians to blame taxpayers for following the laws they enacted.