Why Billionaires Pay Much Less Tax Than the Average American |
This story was originally published on Gabriel Zucman’s substack, to which you can subscribe here (for English) or here (for French).
Last week, Jeff Bezos made an unexpected contribution to the debate about taxation in the United States, claiming that billionaires like himself pay a lot of tax and that it would be pointless to ask them to pay more.
Coming from someone who, famously, paid zero income tax in 2011 and even received a tax credit for his children, this predictably did not go very well.
But it’s not just billionaires like Bezos, with a clear interest in maintaining the status quo, who express this sentiment. There is a common view that the US tax system is progressive, that the super-rich must pay a lot of tax and the working class does not contribute to funding the government.
So it’s worth looking at what the research says on this issue. My colleagues and I have spent several years trying to assemble the most comprehensive estimates of who pays the taxes in the United States.
One myth worth dispelling is the notion that the superrich pay a significant amount of tax.
To begin with, it’s worth dispelling a common myth. Contrary to what we often hear, the working class pays a lot of tax in America. Bezos, echoing........