Hacker News Reader

Comment by omegaworks | Hacker News Reader

Bezos' taxable income isn't $1,000,000. Only an idiot billionaire would structure their day to day processes in ways that were taxable. He likely operates like other extremely wealthy people do[1]: take a small salary to cover the interest on extremely low-interest loans made possible with his massive stock holdings as collateral.

1. https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trov...

View on HN

Your own article literally says Jeff Bezos paid almost a billion dollars in federal income tax on $4.2 billion in income last year. Nothing about crazy schemes to minimize or offshore tax liability.

>In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world’s richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011.

From 2014 to 2018 his wealth grew by 99B, and he paid under 1B in taxes. Would love a sub 1% effective tax rate.

It's a real curiosity how not having any income will result in not paying any income tax. Jeff Bezos did not sell any Amazon shares in 2007 or 2011.

https://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1018724-25.htm

https://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1018724-18.htm

And a stock you own going up in value is not income. It does not trigger tax liability. If he doesn't sell shares right now, he is simply deferring tax liability to a future date. He is not cheating the tax man. His tax rate is not less than 1%.

Such a curiosity that poor people without an income starve to death or are made homeless but rich people without an income can take vanity rocket trips!

Increase in value of assets isn't taxable until you sell them -- this applies for the value of your house just the same as Bezos's Amazon stock.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com