[News] New report claims Billionaires Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Michael Bloomberg, paid very little in income taxes

According to a new report from ProPublica, there were some years when America’s richest men paid absolutely no federal income tax.

 

Despite being worth $191.7 billion according to Forbes’ , Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who is the world’s richest man, reportedly didn’t spend a dime on federal income taxes in 2007 or 2011.

 

Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, worth a reported $151 billion also didn’t pay any Federal income tax in 2018.

Citing confidential Internal Revenue Service data, the report by Propublica says businessman and New York native Carl Icahn got out of paying income tax to the feds twice and philanthropist George Soros did it three times.

Former mayor Michael Bloomberg even had a year, recently, where he skipped federal tax season.

And the amazing thing was that all these billionaires avoided paying those taxes legally.

Citing Forbes’ numbers regarding the estimated worth of the 25 richest people in the United States, Propublica says that group saw its collective wealth grow by $401 billion between 2014 and 2018.

Their “true tax rate,” a figure based on that wealth growth and what they paid out, was 3.4%.

Warren Buffet is said to have been big winner when it comes to avoiding paying federal income taxes, the report adds.

The 90-year-old businessman saw his wealth increase by $24.3 billion in that four-year period. His true tax rate was 0.1%. That comes out to roughly a dime for every $100 he added to his worth of more than $109 billion during that time.

 

Since all these men avoided paying tax legally they can’t be investigated or prosecuted so it’s still business as usual, the report concludes.