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100 dollar bills (archive image): How much taxes have America's super-rich paid in recent years?
Photo: KIM HONG-JI / REUTERS
The US tax authority IRS wants to determine how sensitive data from the super-rich like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk or Warren Buffett could have come to the public.
"I can confirm there is an investigation," said IRS chief Charles Rettig at a Senate hearing in Washington.
The unauthorized disclosure of confidential government information is illegal, said a spokeswoman for the Treasury Department.
The investigative platform "Propublica" had previously published the results of a research, which it claims is based on anonymously leaked IRS data on the income, assets and tax payments of the richest Americans.
The information is intended to show how small contributions many extremely wealthy in the US have to pay to the tax authorities in relation to their immense wealth - and how much they can benefit from legal tax loopholes.
Take Bezos, for example: The Amazon founder's fortune literally exploded between 2014 and 2018.
According to Propublica, it rose by $ 99 billion during this period.
During this time, however, the entrepreneur only paid taxes in the amount of 973 million dollars, which makes a narrow average tax rate of 0.98 percent.
Remarkable: In 2011, Bezos calculated himself "needy": Because according to his tax return he spent more than he earned, he was even able to get a credit of $ 4,000 for his children, according to "Propublica".
Take Musk, for example: The Tesla boss recently paid just $ 455 million, even though his fortune has grown by a whopping $ 13.9 billion.
Take Buffett, for example: he only paid 0.1 percent tax on his net worth of $ 24.3 billion.
aar / dpa