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Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

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Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#111

Post by pb7 »

kstrauser wrote: post #66
tills13 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a tax write-off.

I'll explain why that comment almost never makes sense. Let's say your tax rate is 50% and your taxable income is $1,000,000, so you'll owe $500,000 in taxes. If you donate $100,000 to charity as a "tax write-off", now your taxable income is only $900,000 and you'll only owe $450,000 in taxes, but you lost $100,000 to save that $50,000 . At the end of the day, you'll have $50,000 less than if you didn't donate anythi…

Also it's a gift to an individual not a non-profit, which you can't write off at all.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#112

Post by omegaworks »

missedthecue wrote: post #109
omegaworks wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bezos' taxable income isn't $1,000,000. Only an idiot billionaire would structure their day to day processes in ways that were taxable. He likely operates like other extremely wealthy people do[1]: take a small salary to cover the interest on extremely low-interest loans made possible with his massive stock holdings as collateral. 1. https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trov...

Your own article literally says Jeff Bezos paid almost a billion dollars in federal income tax on $4.2 billion in income last year. Nothing about crazy schemes to minimize or offshore tax liability.

>In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world’s richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011.

From 2014 to 2018 his wealth grew by 99B, and he paid under 1B in taxes. Would love a sub 1% effective tax rate.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#113

Post by lupire »

chroem- wrote: post #83
slg wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Nazi is not the opposite of a communist. Someone doesn't become a Nazi post-WWII because they believe in fascism. They do it because they are motivated by the hateful beliefs of Nazis. Therefore there is a higher barrier to prove that the person has truly changed before they can be forgiven. However there is still a path to forgiveness.

> Someone doesn't become a Nazi post-WWII because they believe in fascism. They do it because they are motivated by the hateful beliefs of Nazis. Thank you, this is precisely my point. How can someone still support communism after the Soviet purges, the holodomor, Chinese cultural revolution, the Cambodian genocide, etc., etc.? Communism has oppressed and killed an order of magnitude more people than fascism, but in…

This thread is about Leninist socialism, which is not Stalinist or Maoist tyranny.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#114

Post by RIMR »

mrstone wrote: post #106
havetocharge wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His employees are free to seek a better paid employment if a jerk they work for underpays them. What's up with this nonstop handout mindset lately?

Yeah, why don't they just stop being poor??

I remember this from the bible.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#115

Post by kypro »

Kind of genius… My understanding as a Brit is that CNN are known to be supportive of progressive economic policies. I suspect they’re also critical of the existence of billionaires like Bezos in a society where many struggle to feed their families.

Bribing influential CNN contributors who hold progressive or far-left economic policies is probably one of the better ways to help shift the media narrative towards one that benefits Bezos.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#116

Post by RIMR »

missedthecue wrote: post #98
cassac wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It deserves cynicism. If he wasn’t a jerk he’d just pay his employees more and maybe pay some taxes. When everyone is fair upfront they don’t need to give us free turkeys on thanksgiving we can buy our own.

He pays all of his employees no less than what Bernie Sanders considers a living wage. At what point would people be satisfied that Bezos pays enough?

Why is Bernie Sanders the authority here? Given inflation and a year-after-year growth in productivity, the minimum wage should be closer to $25/hour. Sanders falls way short of reality - but likely because the powers that be are more likely to compromise with a half-measure than give up more wealth to meaningfully improve America's economy by paying people equitably.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#117

Post by Zelphyr »

techrat wrote: post #90
TechBro8615 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they not pay payroll taxes for the nearly 100k people they employ?

No. The people they employ pay the payroll taxes out of their salary. No company pays payroll taxes for their employees.

"There are a variety of payroll taxes, some paid by employers, some by employees, and some by both."

https://www.paychex.com/articles/payroll-taxes/employers-gui...

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#118

Post by ironrabbit »

cassac wrote: post #81
catillac wrote: post #2

There will be a lot of cynicism on this post from the HN crowd, but these are unbelievably good recipients. I have interacted with Jose Andres many times, and go to his DC restaurants when I visit, and he is truly a wonderful soul who spends all his effort helping others. I don’t know much about Van Jones beyond what I see on TV, but if he’s of the same character as Jose Andres, that is stellar and they will both do…

It deserves cynicism. If he wasn’t a jerk he’d just pay his employees more and maybe pay some taxes. When everyone is fair upfront they don’t need to give us free turkeys on thanksgiving we can buy our own.

Genuine question because I'm out of the loop: it looks to me like the "Bezos doesn't pay taxes" argument is just pointing out that most of his wealth sits in unrealized gains in amazon stock. When he sells stock, he pays taxes. Is there more to it that I'm missing? Is the prevailing argument that we should be paying taxes on unrealized capital gains?

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#119

Post by missedthecue »

omegaworks wrote: post #112
missedthecue wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your own article literally says Jeff Bezos paid almost a billion dollars in federal income tax on $4.2 billion in income last year. Nothing about crazy schemes to minimize or offshore tax liability.

>In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world’s richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011. From 2014 to 2018 his wealth grew by 99B, and he paid under 1B in taxes. Would love a sub 1% effective tax rate.

It's a real curiosity how not having any income will result in not paying any income tax. Jeff Bezos did not sell any Amazon shares in 2007 or 2011.

https://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1018724-25.htm

https://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1018724-18.htm

And a stock you own going up in value is not income. It does not trigger tax liability. If he doesn't sell shares right now, he is simply deferring tax liability to a future date. He is not cheating the tax man. His tax rate is not less than 1%.

Re: Bezos donates $100M each to CNN contributor Van Jones and chef Jose Andres

#120

Post by RIMR »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #75
consumer451 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another reason to temporarily suspend cynicism is that this is a very interesting method of philanthropy. Allowing the recipients to chose their own destinations for the money could lead to a more diverse and disruptive set of expenditures. I am interested to see this award program's effects in 10-20 years. Is this an annual event? I never saw a definitive answer on that.

>> I am interested to see this award program's effects in 10-20 years One of the challenges of this "pay it forward on steroids" approach is that it will likely be hard to attribute measurable changes to the original investments. It does seem notable that Bezos has captured a huge set of resources, then paid it out to others for redistribution under their policies and procedures; he's essentially acting like a govern…

He has more capital than entire nation states. It's absurd that we celebrate this kind of undemocratic power in America.
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