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.
How do you decide what your fair share is though? Do you not take any deductions, even the standard deduction? I'm happy to pay my taxes in full too, but I pay my rate for what they say my income is, including applicable deductions to that income. That's what the billionaires do too. They just have way more tools available to them.
The "ultra rich" likely have a different perspective into how tax dollars are continually squandered and abused, which tempers their desire to give it away to some of the most inefficient and corrupt organizations on the planet.
If you feel so strongly about giving your money away, nothing stops you from writing a check to your favorite causes.
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.
OK, a charitable reading is that two things are being said:
Bezos should pay a fair amount of taxes ie. we ought to close loopholes and raise the rates for billionaires
& 2. Bezos should pay a fair amount of taxes ie. by using legal loopholes and lobbying the govt. for lower taxes, he is acting immoraly and should stop doing so
Both of which I believe is what's meant but are harder to make into a pithy slogan
My point in my earlier comment is that I don't agree with #2. He pays what the government says his "fair share" of taxes are, and why would we expect him to pay any more than that? I bet every one of us here pays exactly what we owe in taxes and not a cent more. That includes taking tax deductions. Even if you take no deductions, you're given a free $13k deduction on your taxable income.
Obviously in some theoretical moral sense billionaires are underpaying. But what's the income level you need to cross before you should willfully avoid tax deductions and ways of avoiding taxes. Now codify that into the law in some way.
And it’s only evasion if you (or someone else) tried it once before and it was ruled abusive. If enough money is at stake, you can go a long way using novel tax schemes to avoid paying taxes long enough to profit, even with civil penalties. Billionaire tax management is a whole ‘nother world.
They aren't skirting anything. If you want to get rid of charitable deductions then advocate for that. People are attacking billionaires because the have unpalatable policy positions.
