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Shit on the people that all of society has been collectively shitting on for generations, classy. Those peasants better be thankful for their breadcrumbs!
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Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities
31–40 of 105 posts
Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities
#32Be better if he just paid taxes.
> Bezos’s annual reported income during these years of $832 million put him only at number 15. He paid an effective tax rate of 23.2% ; as we’ve previously reported, Bezos had so little income in a couple of recent years that he was able to pay $0 in federal income taxes in those periods. https://www.propublica.org/article/americas-top-15-earners-a...
>as we’ve previously reported, Bezos had so little income in a couple of recent years that he was able to pay $0 in federal income taxes in those periods.
This is the part people are bothered by.
Regardless of why, billionaires should never be paying $0 in federal income taxes. Our tax code and the people finding loopholes in it should not do this.
Executives should not be able to be "unpaid" for years because they're getting tax advantaged stock deals.
Nobody should be able to have that much wealth and have a year with no taxes.
If you are the human at the end of the line of ownership that ultimately benefits from assets, you should be charged ordinary income as you extract from those assets.
The only people who should owe $0 in federal taxes are those earning less than a full time minimum wage salary during that tax year, with no exceptions for folks who magically seem to find millions of dollars to spend during a year that they "earned" $0.
Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities
#33Greenwashing. $400M is about what AMZN spent on the totally-unwanted LOTR reboot.
what a nonsense comparison. anyway, you're showing a misunderstanding of the complexity of capital allocation.
So he should have donated 1 billion? why not 2? why not 5? why not 10? well hang on, 10 billion for greening some areas? That's not an optimal use of 10 billion. 8 of those should go to doctors without borders. wait hang on, have you seen the ukrainian refugee crisis? and you're putting 8 billion towards doctors without borders? they should get at least 3 of that. wow so you've donated 10 billion dollars but not a single dollar towards educating women in third world countries? etc ad nauseum.
I guess your take is probably that it's his responsibility to donate 100% of his wealth optimally across the world, and spend the rest of his life doing that. but i'm appealing to people with more sense when I say: don't underestimate how difficult it is to "correctly" spend a large amount of wealth.
Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Bezos’s annual reported income during these years of $832 million put him only at number 15. He paid an effective tax rate of 23.2% ; as we’ve previously reported, Bezos had so little income in a couple of recent years that he was able to pay $0 in federal income taxes in those periods. https://www.propublica.org/article/americas-top-15-earners-a...
I always like how good old Warren Buffett is calling for high earners to be taxed more, yet he never seems to show up on any of these high earner lists...
How is that inconsistent?
Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tax avoidance is not a crime. Evasion is. All these billionaires know how to skirt the rules.
If they're skirting the rules, that's just called following the rules. Why should we expect billionaires to file their taxes suboptimally? The rules are what need changing.
I personally feel a moral obligation to pay my fair share of taxes, especially if I expect my community to be a place I want to be. I could itemize more stuff and pay less but I'm in a position where I can still live comfortably taking the base deduction. In my opinion ultra rich people should be doing the same whether the rules change or not.
Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities
#36Wow, I'm not entirely clear what the grantees are specifically doing from reading this announcement, but I am sure there will be tons of awesome work accomplished. I do wonder exactly what the theory of change here is - this is a huge amount of money, and I am surprised it's a great way to spend it, especially when the Inflation Reduction Act just authorized so much money for similar goals. I didn't dig into the indi…
Poor urban communities may have parks without greenery (think urban basketball court). And generally speaking the data show the opposite with access to parks: https://theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/20/park-inequal...
We do know that trees generally reduce the heat island effect because of evaporation, and that they improve air quality.
Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities
#37[flagged]
It boggles my my that any time there is an attempt to invest in the built environment of poor communities, someone always cries gentrification.
Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities
#38Be better if he just paid taxes.
Taxes -> Uncle Sam -> Some Politician Pockets -> Dumbass projects, pointless initiatives [sometimes fueled by lobbying] -> Maybe some of it finally towards underprivileged communities with a 25% chance? Donating directly to the communities removes all this mess and gets money where it needs to go.
While graft certainly exists to at least some degree, the conclusion still doesn't follow from the premise.
Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities
#39Quite confused by this. Trees and parks are obviously beneficial in numerous real ways.
...but if you ask someone that is really struggling I doubt their answer as to what they need is "more trees outside my door".
From my admittedly ignorant and priviledged position the answer is more likely to be "I can't apply to jobs if i don't have internet".
With people that have their back against the wall you have to address the showstopper issues. That's not to say they don't deserve trees, but given finite resources, prioritize.
Re: Bezos Earth Fund Grants $400M for Greening Underserved Urban U.S. Communities
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
If they're skirting the rules, that's just called following the rules. Why should we expect billionaires to file their taxes suboptimally? The rules are what need changing.
Yes- that's why people in the comments keep griping about how little tax he has to pay
Well, but the complaint is "Bezos should pay his taxes". And we've now established that he has. So... To the comment you replied to's point: we should be upset at the tax code not at people who (as we've established) are probably following the law.