No but their earnings are mainly in their companies, and those can hire fleets of tax attorneys and accountants to crush their tax burden.

Once the money is in stocks, it doesn't get taxed unless you draw on it, but the billionaires can use strategies like buy, borrow, die (which last I checked only really works if you're north of ~ $300M) to avoid personal taxes.

Billionaires benefit most from the largest tax exceptions. No tricky accounting needed it’s baked blatantly into the tax code. Long term capital gains are specifically lower than short term capital gains. Further gains are only taxed on sale allowing a lifetime of growth to pass to the next generation tax free.

They also operate at a scale where many tax breaks become viable. CEO owners aren’t paying themselves nominal salaries because they aren’t getting paid. Creating a shell company to own your 50k car isn’t useful but it’s damn well worth it if you’re buying a 50+m dollar yacht for personal use.

Meanwhile people of lesser means get stuck with all kinds of crap like a 10% early withdrawal penalty on 401k plans.

    for(;;)
        citizens_property -= govTake;

Doesn't look like a free country to me. Just keep taking their shit, over and over again, right?

If only governments weren’t so damn useful we could all avoid taxes.

Instead it’s mostly a question around who pays what share, and there’s some massive winners and losers.