What billionaires don t pay taxes?
In 2018, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, also paid no federal income taxes. Michael Bloomberg managed to do the same in recent years. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn did it twice. George Soros paid no federal income tax three years in a row.
Currently billionaires effectively pay far less personal tax than other taxpayers of more modest means because they can park wealth in shell companies sheltering them from income tax, the group said in its 2024 Global Tax Evasion Report.
Overall: Some years billionaires pay no federal income taxes: Jeff Bezos paid zero in 2007 and 2011, Elon Musk paid zero in 2018, Michael Bloomberg paid zero several times in “recent years”, and George Soros paid zero three years in a row.
The strategy is called 'Buy, Borrow, Die'. This approach involves buying appreciating assets like stocks, collectibles, and particularly real estate; borrowing against these assets at less than their appreciation rate; and eventually passing the assets down to heirs, often with little or no capital gains tax liability.
- Not-for-Profit Organizations.
- U.S. Citizens Working Abroad.
- Low-Income Taxpayers.
- Taxpayers With Many Deductions.
- Taxpayers With Many Dependents.
Tesla explains its avoidance of federal taxes by insisting that all of the company's profit comes from overseas. It's U.S. operations, the company says, lose money. Therefore, as per the terms of the tax code, Tesla owes no federal taxes. While this may be perfectly legal, it's clearly not right.
Amazon (ticker: AMZN) reported $35 billion in U.S. pretax income for fiscal 2021, but is taxed at a federal income-tax rate of 6%, according to a report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, an advocacy group. The Seattle company paid $2.1 billion in taxes that year.
It would raise an estimated $557 billion over ten years. If the ultra-wealthy started paying their fair share under my Billionaires Income Tax proposal, Medicare would be financially sound, and we could protect the Medicare guarantee for millions of Americans.
Tax Shares in Tax Year 2021
The newly released report covers Tax Year 2021 (for tax forms filed in 2022). The newest data reveals that the top 1 percent of earners, defined as those with incomes over $682,577, paid nearly 46 percent of all income taxes – marking the highest level in the available data.
Really rich people (IE old money) do almost EVERYTHING on credit. This lets them keep THEIR money safely invested and earning dividends, and spend OTHER PEOPLE'S money for their day to day expenses. They use the dividends their money earns to service their debts.
Why billionaires pay so little tax?
The short answer is that wealthy people often rely on loans. “For many of these folks, instead of selling the stocks or the real estate — which would cause [it] to be subject to tax — and then using the proceeds to fund their lifestyle, they instead borrow money and [use that] to fund their lifestyles,” Huang explains.
Some examples include: Business Loans: Debt taken to expand a business by purchasing equipment, real estate, hiring more staff, etc. The expanded operations generate additional income that can cover the loan payments. Mortgages: Borrowed money used to purchase real estate that will generate rental income.
The theory holds that rich people aren't gaming the tax system with loopholes or fraudulent practices. Instead, they're limiting what they have to pay in taxes through strategic investing and planning. It's called buy, borrow, die because those are the three components of how the strategy works.
Taxes aren't determined by age, so you will never age out of paying taxes. Basically, if you're 65 or older, you have to file a return for tax year 2023 (which is due in 2024) if your gross income is $15,700 or higher.
Americans didn't pay an estimated $688 billion in taxes due on their 2021 returns—the largest shortfall ever.
The President and First Lady filed their income tax return jointly and reported federal adjusted gross income of $579,514. They paid $169,820 in combined federal, Delaware, and Virginia income taxes. And their 2022 effective federal income tax rate is 23.8 percent.
Apple currently holds about $252 billion in profits offshore, where it can avoid paying U.S. taxes. That's over 90% of the company's total cash on hand. This profit is subject to the corporate income tax as soon as it's “repatriated” back to the U.S.
CNBC's Robert Frank reports on Elon Musk's tax bill which is the largest in history. Musk will pay a total of $12 billion for 2021.
Apple annual income taxes for 2023 were $16.741B, a 13.26% decline from 2022. Apple annual income taxes for 2022 were $19.3B, a 32.86% increase from 2021. Apple annual income taxes for 2021 were $14.527B, a 50.07% increase from 2020.
Netflix continues its tax avoidance streak, reporting an effective federal corporate income tax rate of 1.1 percent in 2021 on $5.3 billion in profits. The company avoided more than $1 billion in taxes in 2021 alone.
What type of business pays the least taxes?
Limited liability company (LLC) tax considerations
LLCs have “pass-through” taxation, which means that no tax on the LLC's income is paid at the business level. Income/loss is instead reported on the personal tax returns of the owners, and any tax due is paid at the individual level.
Most wealthy people don't see credit cards as a way to splurge on luxuries or accumulate debt. Instead, rich people use credit cards to their financial advantage. Let's explore the six credit card habits rich people use to maximize their money.
What does impact your finances are federal tax brackets and there are seven of them. The lowest tax bracket is 10%. The highest tax bracket is 37%. If you're in the middle class, you're probably in the 22%, 24% or possibly 32% tax brackets.
Taxation of gains and losses from assets like stocks
Tradable assets (like stocks that are easily valued on an annual basis) owned by billionaires will be marked to market each year. This means that billionaires will pay tax on gains or take deductions for losses, whether or not they sell the asset.
According to a 2021 White House study, the wealthiest 400 billionaire families in the U.S. paid an average federal individual tax rate of just 8.2 percent. For comparison, the average American taxpayer in the same year paid 13 percent.
