Why do people say this? Aren’t all of the employees at Amazon paying income tax? I’m genuinely curious because this is brought up so much.

It’s not quite accurate to say they paid zero in taxes. While we do not actually know, they claim to have paid 1.2 billion in taxes.

Are you saying that when Bezos sells Amazon stock he's not paying capital gains tax?

That wouldn't surprise me. There are probably entire companies working on nothing else but to reduce his taxes.

The tax rate is also low enough that if he does pay, it's not much. 15% total instead of the 30-40‰ I currently pay.

A nitpick: the long term capital gains tax for the top bracket is 20%, not 15% [1]. My guess is that Jeff Bezos is in the top bracket.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_gains_tax_in_the_Unite...

Oooo neato I never knew there was a tiering of rates like this-- probably because I haven't had a reason to find out XD thanks for the info

40‰ = 4% < 15%

Oooo hey wow I have no idea why that character was entered, guess I typoed something on mobile with a long press. Weird :)

Great! Less money for warmongers like Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump to make war overseas.

And less money for a functioning social net (which the US doesn’t even have yet)

6 months of unemployment payments (if you have worked for at least 6 months and live in a state that doesn't play games with unemployment) is a somewhat cilivized safety net.

While finding a job in a bad economy can certainly be hard, at least you will be able to pay your rent and buy food and plan for the event that you are not able to maintain your current lifestyle.

However our medical insurance situation, unless you are able to qualify for a free/less than $30 per month plan, is really horrific and cannot be justified. If someone is healthy and becomes unemployed, it is not terrible but definitely not good. If you have routine medicines and you are unemployed.... death sentence.

>6 months of unemployment payments (if you have worked for at least 6 months and live in a state that doesn't play games with unemployment) is a somewhat cilivized safety net.

I think this misses self-employed people, under-employed people / people with reduced work hours who are working. It also under-appreciates how difficult it has been for people in even well-meaning states to get through the hurdles of filing.