cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/50973
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos drew ridicule on Wednesday after he claimed that doubling the amount of taxes he pays wouldn’t be beneficial to society.
During an interview on CNBC, journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Bezos about arguments made by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) that the super-rich have lower effective tax rates than average Americans given how much of their wealth comes from unrealized capital gains and not traditional income earned through actual labor.
“I pay billions of dollars in taxes,” replied Bezos, whom Forbes estimates is worth $267 billion. “If people want me to pay billions more, then let’s have that debate. But don’t pretend, you know, that that’s going to solve the problem. You could double the taxes I pay, and it’s not gonna help that teacher in Queens, I promise you.”
Bezos on CNBC: “You could double the taxes I pay, and it’s not gonna help that teacher in Queens. I promise you.” pic.twitter.com/ocbf34XZhA
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 20, 2026A 2021 investigation by Pro Publica found that Bezos’ effective tax rate of less than 1% between 2014 and 2018, as he paid a total of $973 million in taxes over a period in which his net worth grew by $99 billion.
As explained by the Institute of Taxation and Policy (ITEP), this effective tax rate was “significantly lower” than the tax rate paid by middle-class Americans over that period.
“There were multiple years where Bezos paid nothing at all in income taxes,” ITEP noted. “While having billions of dollars of wealth, Bezos consistently avoided income tax by offsetting earned income with other investment losses and various deductions, all while Amazon stock was rapidly rising.”
Democratic congressional candidate Melat Kiros in Colorado suggested Bezos had a point about taxation—"because we tax income, not wealth.
“Bezos takes out a tiny salary, pays the income tax, and lives off loans borrowed against his stocks, basically tax-free,” said Kiros. “They all do this and now 935 billionaires hold more wealth than 170 million Americans. It’s time to tax wealth.”
Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, took issue with Bezos’ claim that doubling his taxes would produce no benefits.
“Jeff Bezos paid $500 million for his super-yacht and $75 million for his super-yacht’s mini-yacht—both of which he’s allowed to write off on his taxes,” she wrote in a social media post. “That alone would cover $180 in classroom supplies for every public school teacher in the US.”
Craig Harrington, research director at Media Matters for America, marveled at how out of touch Bezos seemed to be.
“There’s a funny thing about being uber wealthy,” he observed. “They get so rich that they lose all sense of place, they essentially manifest as stateless people with no connection to or understanding of the world outside their private airports and resplendent villas.”
Journalist and screenwriter David Simon expressed a similar view of the impact of immense wealth on Bezos’ psyche.
“Too much money contorts any human being,” Simon wrote. “And what was once a man is now, for the rest of the world, a fully metastasized cancer.”
Author Hemant Mehta, meanwhile, simply wondered if Bezos “auditioning to be the next Bond villain.”
From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.
The last time he publicly shared his tax returns, he paid $0 in federal taxes. This was 2011. Assuming he hasn’t gotten worse at tax avoision in the last 15 years, he’s probably still paying $0.
So he’s technically correct, doubling $0 is still 0.
“Let’s have a debate” sure is a common refrain from assholes who haven’t spoken to a normal person in 25 years
“Let’s have an argument” sounds too aggressive.
I don’t debate or argue, I only have struggle sessions
Tbh he’s right. Out entire society is oriented around the growth of capital and that money would just get siphoned to other capitalists (or maybe even back to him )if it were simply taxed.
I’m kind of tired of “Marxists” latching onto this pro-tax rhetoric. We should want to drastically change the organization of our society and how production functions. Jeff Bezos produces no value so he should not receive anything plain and simple. That he gets to keep any percentage of the wealth he receives from his financial assets should be considered a disappointing compromise for us if not a defeat. Communism has never been about raising taxes.
I agree with you. It’s still important to demonstrate to working class how billionaires really think of themselves and of society.
Where I live, I see graffiti every day that says “TⒶX THE RICH” complete with the anarchist A. That’s the level of thought among the most “radical” here. Gives me a laugh every time.
In the US especially, there is no direct line from tax revenue to national public spending. The purpose of taxation is to reclaim some of the dollars out of the economy; the national government can print money or take on unlimited debt, as needed, if they want to fund their budget. Taxation is essentially a monetary policy used to manage inflation etc.
At state and local levels, like Mamdani’s NYC which Bezos was talking about, taxation is what funds public programs. Tax revenue that Bezos pays to NYC does actually pay for the schools in NYC. I agree with you that this isn’t the entire solution, from a Marxist angle, but Marxism is also about class struggle. This is part of the class struggle just as much as the struggle for better wages or a shorter working day.
yeah, like dropping profits (say in half) by increasing salaries will not only improve lives of 100000s workers (in amazon case), but also drop amazon evaluation (in rational stock market) in half, thus making mr bezos less wealthy on paper by some 400 billion, instead of waiting 50 years of 1% wealth tax to do anything.
or that taxes will be used to plug deficits, so pog much wow
He’s right in the sense that if the government actually took money from him, they’d just spend it on bombs and cops and not help anyone except defense contractors like Amazon
Doubling 0 is still 0
i agree it’s why he needs to be removed from existence.
So doubling his taxes would be a net of what, 2%? He’s right, doubling isn’t nearly enough, let’s go for a 2,000% increase at the minimum.
The facial scruff is too uncanny. You can’t convince me he wasn’t killed and replaced by a robot
[insert research about how people with too much money lose their empathy over time which changes everything from their politics to their affectation here]
He didnt feel like doing the interview so he got his body double to do it. It was short notice so he had no time to shave
Bezos on CNBC: "You could double the taxes I pay
ok cool
correct, the worker power move would be doubling the salaries of employees, instead of building useless institutions controlled by porkies
Good point jeff. We’ll increase it by 100 times then.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Billionaires shutting the fuck up for their own good challenge: IMPOSSIBLE.
Let’s double the taxes he pays every day forever and start taking the meat next
Head tax! Just a little bit off the top
He was about to do the John Brown quote
