Some American billionaire tax evader, including Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk | infodesk4n

Information can be seen on a news website claiming that American billionaires pay very low income taxes.

The ProPublica website says it has seen the tax returns of some of the richest people in the world, including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Warren Buffett.

The website alleges that Amazon owner Bezos paid no taxes in 2007 and 2011, and Tesla owner Musk paid no taxes in 2018.

A White House spokesman called the leak "illegal" and said the FBI and tax officials were investigating.

PropBalka said it was analyzing Internal Revenue Service data on billionaire taxpayers and will release more data in the coming weeks.

While the BBC has not been able to confirm these claims, the alleged leak comes at a time when debate is encouraging tax payments and growing inequality among the wealthy.

Propbolka says America's 25 richest people pay less in taxes, averaging 15.8 percent of gross earnings - less than most traditional American employees.

“We were surprised to find out if you’re a billionaire, you can reduce [taxes] to zero,” said Jesse Eisinger, a senior reporter and editor at PropBallica. In fact, by paying zero taxes we have actually realized that rich people can legally completely ignore the system.

“They have the potential to get tax breaks, get loans and exploit flaws in the system,” he said.

Therefore, by owning shares in the company, your wealth continues to increase significantly, but is not recorded as income.

“There’s more to it than that,” he said. "They get tax breaks aggressively, often because they borrow a large amount of money to maintain their lifestyle."

He said American billionaires buy assets, do their best, or fortunately they acquire wealth and then get loans based on them.

Because they show no profit or do not sell their shares, they have no tax revenue.

"They then borrow from a bank at a relatively low interest rate, take advantage of it, and use the cost of interest as a reduction in their income," he explained.

Biden plans

The website claims “by using tax strategies legally, many wealthy people reduce their federal tax bills to zero or have closed,” even though their wealth has increased in recent years. There has been a huge increase.

Like many ordinary citizens, the wealthy can underestimate their taxable income by showing it in terms of charitable donations and investment income.

Using data from Forbes magazine, PropBallica said the wealth of the 25 richest Americans reached a total of 40.401 billion between 2014 and 2018, but they only paid .613.6 billion in income taxes in those years.

President Joe Biden has pledged to raise taxes on the richest Americans as part of his mission to establish equality and raise money for his large-scale infrastructure investment program.

They want to raise the highest tax rate, they want to double the income tax of the rich, and they want to change the inheritance tax.

However, PropBalka’s analysis concludes that “under current proposals from the Biden administration, some wealthy Americans, as hedge fund managers, may have to pay higher taxes, but most of the 25 richest people in the United States Together will make little difference.

Among the billionaires mentioned is George Soros, who is accused of paying nominal taxes. Her office did not respond to a request for comment from the BBC, but said in a statement to ProPublika that Soros had not been taxed for several years due to investment losses.

The statement also noted that they have long supported higher taxes for wealthy people in the United States.

'illegal'

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose tax details are included in the documents, said the disclosures raised concerns about privacy and that it is "legal" to find out the source of the leak.

Propublika is a research website. Many articles have been written about how budget cuts from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service have affected the ability of large, wealthy corporations to enforce tax rules. The news agency says it received leaked documents in response to the articles.

White House press secretary Jane Sackie says it is illegal to "release any official information without permission."

Finance Department spokeswoman Lily Adams said in an email statement to Reuters that the case was referred to the FBI, federal prosecutors and two internal Treasury Department investigators and that they are "all independent investigations."

“I can’t talk to anyone about specific taxpayers,” said U.S. Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Charles Ratig. I can confirm that the source of the information in this article is being investigated.