Publication of the Propublica portal data on the amount of income tax paid by American billionaires led to calls to introduce a tax on wealth and became the object of investigation by the US Tax Department.
According to the portal, income tax, paid in 2014-2018 with the richest American billioners, which was known for its journalistic investigations in 2014-2018, among which the general director of the American company AMAZON Jeff Bezos, head of the Tesla and Spacex Ilon Mask and the head of the Berkshire Hathaway Investment Fund Warren Buffett is not more than a few percent of the growth of their wealth as a whole.
The state of the mask, for example, increased by $ 13.9 billion for the indicated five years, while he reported $ 1.52 billion income from which $ 455 million tax paid. Thus, in fact, Mask paid 3.27% of tax From the amount to which its condition has grown. An even smaller share listed the federal budget the richest man of the world of Bezos. With an increase in the state of $ 99 billion, he reported on income of $ 4.22 billion, paying $ 973 million tax (0.98% of the amount on which its condition increased).
A peculiar record of the minimum “tax rate” set 90-year-old Warren Buffett. His condition increased by $ 24.3 billion, while he reported on the income of $ 125 million and paid $ 23.7 million tax (0.1% of the amount on which its condition increased).
Although from the point of view of the law to billionaires there is no complaints, the publication of data on taxes paid by them caused a significant public resonance. Propublica material with comments posted some leading American media, such as the New York Times newspaper and CBS TV channel. The question of this was asked by the representative of the US Tax Department Charles Retetigu on the hearings in the Senate on the same day. He stated that the Office would investigate how the tax reporting documents of the richest Americans were received by Propublica journalists.