You can structure your income to be more tax efficient if you aren't a full time employee. Most people in the top 10% of wealth will be structuring their income in such a way to avoid as much tax as possible.
The tax system really favors two groups: private equity and founders, both of whom make their money primary through capital appreciation.
Umm. Tim was taxed there for selling his shares. Not a salary. His Salary I don't think is mentioned in the article you linked. As of 2022 it was $3,000,000, he was getting ~$47 million that year in stock compensation, which I doubt he gets taxed on unless he sells it.
https://9to5mac.com/2024/01/11/tim-cook-total-pay-compensati...
He is definitely restructuring his income to be tax efficient.
> The tax system really favors two groups: private equity and founders, both of whom make their money primary through capital appreciation.
Maybe. But that is irrelevant to the original question.
He can then leverage those stocks BTW to receive loans, which he won't pay taxes on as they are a debt. Then he can make use of the stock without selling it, and then use that extra income to invest in other things that will generate him additional income/capital or whatever.
There are even more tricks you can do at that point, where on paper you are technically making a loss and never pay a cent in tax.
"*Only*" That is a lot of money for most people. How the other half live!
> The threshold to enter top 10% is only 180K
Yes. I was doing it when I was earning less than that as a contractor in the UK. I can tell you how it generally works in the UK:
* You set up a LTD company.
* You pay yourself a minimum salary where you pay the bare minimum tax this is approximately £13000 the last time I checked. I think you can pay any other "directors" this as well, you basically make your significant other one.
* Anything related to work becomes an expense e.g. parking tickets, mileage on your vehicle, laptop, computer software etc. So you don't pay this, the company does and thus you get a tax relief.
* You pay yourself dividends from your LTD company. You pay yourself the bare minimum and leave as much as possible in the company. These were taxed at a far lower rate that the equivalent money if you worked perm.
* You pay your pension via the company (this is tax free upto £60,000 IIRC).
In the US how it is exactly done will be of course different as the taxes are structured differently but I know for a fact that people are doing similar in the US.
A person paid on a W2 can’t do these things no matter how big their salary is.
I give an example of how you would do it in the UK. Similar restructuring can be done in the US.