How the Rich Avoid Taxes

 

THE RICH DON'T PAY THEIR FAIR SHARE OF TAXES:

ProPublica took the top 25 wealthiest Americans and compared how much their wealth grew with how much they paid in taxes. From 2014 to 2018, they paid taxes equal to 3.4% of their wealth gain. Rest of us pay c. %14. Some pay far less. Warren Buffet pays about 10-cents in taxes on every $100 of his wealth. You pay far more. How come?

Jeff Bezos paid zero taxes for two years. In 2011 he reported earned income so low, the government owed HIM money and paid him over $4,000 in the child benefit. How come?

Elon Musk paid zero taxes also, yet can build his own space fleet to supply the International Space Station. How come?

The report goes on and on, outrageous case after outrageous case.

How come?

None of these ultra-rich did anything illegal. Nor did they have, as commonly assumed, armies of high-paid tax lawyers who knew all the arcane loopholes. You don't need fancy knowledge to do what they do.

This is because our tax structure is built so that the ultra-rich are entirely outside the system. Our tax system taxes wages, which almost all of us must have to survive. The ultra-rich don't have much, or any, wages to tax. Mark Zuckerberg, owner of Facebook, the medium by which you and I are communicating, earns a salary of $1 (ONE DOLLAR) per year. How can he survive doing that?

Because the rich live off their wealth, not their wages or other taxable income. The federal government, the IRS, does not tax their wealth, their homes, their yachts, their Wall Street stocks, no matter how many billions these may amount to. (If they sell their stocks, they pay a capital gains tax..... but only the stupid rich sell their stocks..... and they don't remain ultra-rich for long.)

Instead, the ultra-rich go to banks and use their many gazillions as collateral for loans. Banks are glad to loan to them.... and the interest they pay on the loans are far lower than their fair tax rate would be.

So, now they have many billions to live on.... Jeff Bezos is building a yacht to supply his $500 million much bigger yacht. Or they use the loan to buy and invest. Bezos paid half that yacht amount, $200 million, to buy the Washington Post.

And, guess what? THE IRS DOES NOT TAX LOANS! NO MATTER HOW MANY BILLIONS IT MAY COME TO.

And then you keep on doing things like this, simply rolling over your loans, until you die..... and then you can find other ways to make sure your heirs avoid estate taxes and inherit the bulk of your wealth.

So, the mantra is BUY, BORROW, DIE...... you can't avoid death..... but you can certainly avoid taxes..... and all legally.

You too can follow their lead, especially if you inherit some wealth to begin with. Invest in stocks. Use that as collateral for bank loans. Live off the loans or use them to buy newspapers. And keep on doing it until you die. This is how the rich get rich and stay rich.

Something wrong with our entire tax structure here!