America's rich pay less taxes than workers and middle-income families

Washington-Sana

ProPublica, a US investigative website, has revealed that wealthy US citizens, including Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, pay significantly lower taxes than most middle-income workers and families.

The site said that it examined tax returns for some of the world's richest people and analyzed a huge set of Internal Revenue Service data on billionaire taxes in the United States to reveal that 25 rich people pay less taxes than most workers, averaging 15.8 percent of adjusted gross income.

The site indicated that Bezos did not pay any taxes between 2007 and 2011, as well as the founder of the American automaker Tesla, who did not pay any taxes in 2018.

Many super-rich can reduce their federal tax bills to nothing or near zero using legal tax strategies, and they can also reduce their income tax bills through charitable donations and withdraw money from investment income rather than wage income.

The website pointed out that the wealth of 25 of the richest Americans jumped by 401 billion dollars from 2014 to 2018, but they paid only 13.6 billion dollars in income tax during those years.

The site noted that although some wealthy Americans, such as hedge fund managers, will pay more taxes under the proposals of the administration of US President Joe Biden, the vast majority of the 25 richest people in the United States will see little change in their taxes.