eli5 what do people mean when they say billionaires dont get taxed
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They’re mostly just wrong. Some will be lying/misrepresenting, but many are mistaken because billionaires typically don’t pay the same taxes as average workers, such as income tax, but they’ll pay a lot more of e.g. capital gains tax. This is compounded by people like e.g. Robert Kiyosaki going around bragging about how “you can’t tax us” and “we don’t pay tax”. He’s trying to make out like he has some clever secret, and he’s using it to sell his books and seminars, the income from which he _will_ be paying taxes on.
Assuming they’re doing everything above board and in the spirit in the tax laws, by and large, they will be taxed, a lot, at least in absolute numbers, over the course of their life. You can easily find reported federal income taxes for American billionaires. They are paying hundreds of millions. However, overall, the effective tax rate is a lot lower than the average worker, perhaps a few percent instead of 20-30.
Also, if you ignore the first assumption, some of them cheat.
The main issue people have with billionaires though is that, even after all the tax, they’re still billionaires, and people find it unpalatable to have billionaires existing while some people are living without food, shelter, warmth, or any combination thereof.
Unfortunately, much of the discourse boils down to “they’re not paying their fair share”, without anyone being able to give a number on what’s fair. To which I’ll refer you to my previous paragraph. Until everyone is housed and fed, the billionaires aren’t being taxed enough. Which is not necessarily wrong.
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