How the Richest People in America Avoid Paying Taxes
theatlantic.com
How the Richest People in America Avoid Paying Taxes
1–10 of 19 posts
Re: How the Richest People in America Avoid Paying Taxes
#2The secret: they do pay taxes, enormous amounts. A small handful of people pay billions in taxes a year. A wealth tax is not only deeply immoral, but it's a bad idea, and every country that's tried it has watched it fail. If someone with billions in assets doesn't take home a salary, then they don't pay income tax on a salary that year. Get them when they sell stock, like they did when Elon paid ~12 billion in taxes, or when the companies they run pay corporate taxes, like when Berkshire Hathaway paid ~26.8 billion.
It's frustrating because I suspect billionaire taxes are deeply interesting, but that's not what this article is about. The article reads like someone who's 5'9 complaining about NBA players
Re: How the Richest People in America Avoid Paying Taxes
#3The secret: they do pay taxes, enormous amounts. A small handful of people pay billions in taxes a year. A wealth tax is not only deeply immoral, but it's a bad idea, and every country that's tried it has watched it fail. If someone with billions in assets doesn't take home a salary, then they don't pay income tax on a salary that year. Get them when they sell stock, like they did when Elon paid ~12 billion in taxes,…
> A wealth tax is not only deeply immoral
A wealth tax is deeply immoral?
Re: How the Richest People in America Avoid Paying Taxes
#4The secret: they do pay taxes, enormous amounts. A small handful of people pay billions in taxes a year. A wealth tax is not only deeply immoral, but it's a bad idea, and every country that's tried it has watched it fail. If someone with billions in assets doesn't take home a salary, then they don't pay income tax on a salary that year. Get them when they sell stock, like they did when Elon paid ~12 billion in taxes,…
Wealth tax mostly works here in Switzerland but it's hard to enforce when it comes to subjective items like artwork. But it's so low here they probably should just scrap it. But then you have so many wastes of humanity here that inherit all of their money and do nothing with it other than have a good life of good food, nice cars, mild plastic surgery, etc.
Re: How the Richest People in America Avoid Paying Taxes
#5Donating to political parties seems to work well.
Re: How the Richest People in America Avoid Paying Taxes
#6The secret: they do pay taxes, enormous amounts. A small handful of people pay billions in taxes a year. A wealth tax is not only deeply immoral, but it's a bad idea, and every country that's tried it has watched it fail. If someone with billions in assets doesn't take home a salary, then they don't pay income tax on a salary that year. Get them when they sell stock, like they did when Elon paid ~12 billion in taxes,…
> A wealth tax is not only deeply immoral A wealth tax is deeply immoral?
Morality means different things to different people. Some even believe that freeing a slave was immoral because it deprived his owner of an asset.
Re: How the Richest People in America Avoid Paying Taxes
#7The secret: they do pay taxes, enormous amounts. A small handful of people pay billions in taxes a year. A wealth tax is not only deeply immoral, but it's a bad idea, and every country that's tried it has watched it fail. If someone with billions in assets doesn't take home a salary, then they don't pay income tax on a salary that year. Get them when they sell stock, like they did when Elon paid ~12 billion in taxes,…
Spain’s wealth tax works fine.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/aug/16/spain-put-u...
Re: How the Richest People in America Avoid Paying Taxes
#8[deleted]
Re: How the Richest People in America Avoid Paying Taxes
#9Huh.
How is it the author managed to name drop Trump, but avoided Pritzker?
Fair is fair. If you’re going to bash the rich, at least bash fairly.
Re: How the Richest People in America Avoid Paying Taxes
#10The secret: they do pay taxes, enormous amounts. A small handful of people pay billions in taxes a year. A wealth tax is not only deeply immoral, but it's a bad idea, and every country that's tried it has watched it fail. If someone with billions in assets doesn't take home a salary, then they don't pay income tax on a salary that year. Get them when they sell stock, like they did when Elon paid ~12 billion in taxes,…
Spain’s wealth tax works fine. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/aug/16/spain-put-u...
Spain GDP per capita
2008: $35,603 2024: $35,297
US GDP per capita
2008: $48,570 2024: $85,809
Seems to be working great!