It means they're not exercising loopholes and legal sleight of hand to pay less.
So my time spent on this ends now.
At least, that was the publicly delivered account.
For a billionare who can already retire in comfort few will ever know to be using any kind of IRA for any purpose is outside of the publicly given justification for their existence.
So if you're sufficiently rich (by some arbitrary amount), you're now a "tax evader" and "not paying your fair share"? Can we say the same about other deductions, like the standard deduction? I doubt you'll be able to find a politician that answer "yes" to "do you think bill gates' first $14.6k in income should be tax-free?", does that mean that's "tax evasion" too?
The standard deduction has an entirely different purpose which is not negated by extremely high income and/or wealth.
IRA's, however, were set up for a specific purpose for which Thiel is not the target.
I really don't know how this is difficult unless you're trying to be a troll or somehow miraculously don't comprehend how numbers work.
So the question is really: why do some people only get to save $7k a year in an IRA and others get to save much, much more?
>employees of small and less well funded businesses
For example, a startup without the funds or time to do all the HR to allow for 401ks is disadvantaged because their employees cannot contribute as much to a retirement account as someone who works for a business that offers a 401k (or for themselves).
A person has the following choices:
1) work for a business offering a 401k (usually larger, well funded, etc)
2) work for themselves
3) work for a small, upstart business (usually smaller, not as well funded, etc)
Why does working for #3 disallow you from saving as much for retirement? Why are tax advantaged retirement savings a function of your employer at all?
Same for paying for health insurance with pre-tax income.
https://www.currentfederaltaxdevelopments.com/blog/2018/7/12...
Some examples:
> Food conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland enjoyed $438 million of U.S. pretax income last year and received a federal tax rebate of $164 million.
> The delivery giant FedEx zeroed out its federal income tax on $1.2 billion of U.S. pretax income in 2020 and received a rebate of $230 million.
> The shoe manufacturer Nike didn’t pay a dime of federal income tax on almost $2.9 billion of U.S. pretax income last year, instead enjoying a $109 million tax rebate.
If you think this is the same as someone putting $7k into a 401k then you are acting in bad faith and we have nothing productive to discuss.
Those cases are different, even though the legal status of them may be the same.