International media has been revealed details claiming to reveal how little income tax US wealthy pay including Jeff Bezos.
According to ProPublica, it has recorded the tax returns of some of the uber-rich people in US including Jeff Bezos who paid no tax back in 2007 while, Elon Musk who paid not a single penny back in 2018.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and tax authorities are probing into the matter. A White house spokeswoman termed this lead as “illegal”.
However, the BBC has not confirmed the allegations as the claims come at a time of increasing debate about the “amount of tax paid by the billionaires” and “widening inequality”.
According to ProPublica, the wealthiest 25% of Americans pay less in taxes – an average of 15.8% of adjusted gross income – than the majority of US employees.
ProPublica senior writer and editor Jesse Eisinger told the “Today Show” “We were astounded to see that if you were a multi-billionaire, you could reduce it [tax] down to nothing. We were taken aback by the fact that multi-billionaire people of the US were paying no taxes. Ultra-wealthy individuals can circumvent the system in a completely legal manner.”
President Joe Biden has promised to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans as part of an effort to improve equity and create funds for his enormous infrastructure investment plan.
Biden intends to raise the top rate of tax, double the tax on what high earners get from investments, and modify inheritance tax.
ProPublica’s analysis, however, concluded that, “While some wealthy Americans, such as hedge fund managers, would pay more taxes under the current Biden administration proposals, the vast majority of the top 25 would see little change.”
George Soros, one of the uber-rich people and a philanthropist, is reportedly said to have paid no tax. His office, in a statement said that Mr Soros did not owe tax a few years owing to the losses on investments, however, did not “reply to a BBC request for comment”.
