Why Billionaires Pay So Little Tax

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2021

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Elon Musk and George Soros are household names. They are among the wealthiest people in the United States. But a recent report by ProPublica has found another thing that separates them from regular Americans citizens: They have paid almost nothing in taxes. Why does the U.S. tax system let that happen? Guest: Jonathan Weisman, a congressional correspondent for The New York Times.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From The New York Times, I'm Michael Bavaro. This is A Daily.
0:11.0	Today.
0:12.0	An explosive news story shedding light on the taxes paid by the ultra wealthy.
0:16.0	They're the biggest billionaires in America, behind brands like Amazon and Tesla.
0:21.0	They're paying little in income taxes compared to their fortunes.
0:24.0	Sometimes nothing at all.
0:26.0	Secret documents obtained by ProPublica from inside the IRS.
0:31.0	News flashed John the super rich. They're not like us.
0:34.0	Are reigniting a long-simmering debate about why the ultra wealthy are taxed so differently than those who earn far less.
0:44.0	Now the scandal is what they're doing is perfectly legal.
0:49.0	Sabrina Tavinesi spoke with Arconic, Jonathan Weisman, about how that came to be.
0:55.0	And what it would take to change it.
1:06.0	It's Tuesday, June 15th.
1:14.0	Okay, Jonathan. Talk me through exactly what we learned from this report last week.
1:19.0	It was a shocker because what we saw were household names.
1:24.0	People like Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Alan Musk, George Soros, paid virtually nothing in taxes.
1:32.0	And in some years, they paid zero taxes.
1:35.0	And what is remarkable is that they weren't breaking the law.
1:39.0	They were using the tax code as Congress wrote it and as the internal revenue service interpreted.
1:47.0	Everything they did was perfectly legal.
1:51.0	How is that possible?
1:53.0	Well, Jeff Bezos is not like you and I.
	...

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