According to Forbes real-time statistics, the latest net worth of Bezos and Musk are US$190 billion (approximately 1.2 trillion RMB) and US$167 billion (approximately RMB 1 trillion), ranking first and third in the world‘s richest list respectively. Bit. It stands to reason that the rich will pay more income taxes, and even if they pay more taxes, their burden is still smaller than that of ordinary workers.
However, a survey from the US news website ProPublica found that the actual tax payments of the top rich people are beyond imagination. For example, Bezos did not pay any federal personal income tax in 2007 and 2011.
How low are the taxes paid by the super-rich Americans? ProPublica has obtained the tax filing records of the super-rich Americans for more than 15 years and found that not only are their actual personal income tax rates far lower than ordinary Americans, in some years, the federal personal income tax of some super-rich people is even worse. Is zero.
For example, Bezos, the founder of Amazon and now the richest man in the world, reported revenue of US$4.22 billion from 2014 to 2018 and paid US$973 million in taxes. However, considering his net worth soared to nearly US$100 billion, the actual tax rate is not To 1%.
From 2006 to 2018, Bezos’ tax avoidance behavior was even more alarming: total income was US$6.5 billion and taxes were US$1.4 billion. However, his wealth surged by US$127 billion, and the actual tax rate was only slightly over 1%, reaching 1.1%. s level.
Musk, the founder of Tesla, who became the world‘s second richest last year, did not pay any federal personal income tax in 2018, and the federal personal income tax of financial giant Soros has shown zero for three consecutive years.
Overall, in the five years from 2014 to 2018, the total wealth of the 25 wealthiest people in the United States according to Forbes increased by $401 billion, but they only paid $13.6 billion in federal income tax, which means their The actual tax rate is only 3.4%. Specifically, Buffett is the lowest, only 0.10%. Bezos is less than 1%. Among the other lowest few people, Musk is 3.27%.
At a media briefing held by the White House on June 8, local time, a reporter quoted the latest report issued by the US news website ProPublica to ask that American billionaires evaded income tax under certain circumstances. What is the White House’s response to this?
The official response stated that, first of all, any unauthorized disclosure of confidential government information is illegal, and they take it seriously and will not comment without authorization. Second, the Internal Revenue Service will take all measures to investigate tax evasion, including submitting the matter to the Ministry of Finance, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Ministry of Justice.
A recent survey by the American Institute for Policy Research (IPS) found that while low-income workers lost their income, jobs, and even their lives during the epidemic, many top American companies used the epidemic as an excuse to lay off their employees while digging their brains to make unjustified profits for corporate executives.
The data shows that among the top 100 companies in the United States that employ the largest number of low-income workers, 51 have increased their senior executives’ salaries by an average of 29% through illegal operations last year; on the contrary, they abolished a large number of low-income employees, making hiring staff costs. An average drop of 2%. The average salary of the CEOs of these companies last year was $15.3 million, which is 830 times the average salary of workers.
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