Click bait, we don’t know what Bezos paid in tax because it’s not public. We know what Amazon paid, but that has nothing to do with what Bezos paid personally. What Amazon paid is a byproduct of the current tax system and 100% bonus depreciation. It’s allowing them to dump their free cash flow into expansion.
I love a good surly tax debate. It’s always full of great misinformation, misunderstandings of the system, and the all important shit I read on the internet while I was sitting on the toilet this morning. I support a wealth tax, it may help pay for my next boat so I’m in. I would prefer it be tied to some sort of programs.
However, structurally what methodology are we going to use for property valuations? How are we valuing closely held businesses? How are we handling personal property valuations annually? Are we using some sort of national methodology or is it like it is now for estates and everyone just makes the shit up as they go? Also, why $50M? Why not tie it to the estate tax exemption and anything over that be taxed annually in some way. 2% may be a little steep, but .5%-1% on a lower threshold with maybe a sliding scale up to 2%. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter because this debate has pretty well been a nonstarter even though if it went to a public vote it would carry soundly. Just goes to show you who the control lies with in this country.
Just for the record it would be a much simpler process to make some corrections to the income tax system to close some of the holes in it.