Jeff Bezos urges US government to stop taxing 50% of America — and claims doubling his taxes won’t help ‘that teacher in Queens'

“The top 1% of taxpayers pay 40% of all the tax revenue. The bottom half pay only 3%,” Bezos said. “I think it should be zero. I don’t think it should be 3%.”

According to the Tax Foundation, the top 1% of taxpayers earned 20.6% of total adjusted gross income in 2023 and paid 38.4% of all federal income taxes. Meanwhile, the bottom half of taxpayers paid just 3.3% of federal income taxes.

That helps explain Bezos’s argument: If the bottom 50% account for only a small slice of federal income-tax revenue, eliminating that burden could matter far more to struggling households than it would to Washington’s overall revenue picture.

He used a Queens nurse as an example.

“Why is a nurse in Queens who makes $75,000 a year paying more than $1,000 a month in taxes?” he asked. “That’s $1,000 a month that could help with rent or groceries … We shouldn’t be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington. They should be sending her an apology.”

To be sure, individual income taxes are the single largest revenue source for the U.S. federal government — so even a relatively small drop in that category could still amount to a meaningful sum. But Bezos argued that Washington could make up the difference by cutting waste.

“The Amazon CFO could find 3% in the federal budget on a Tuesday afternoon,” he said. “There is so much waste in government spending.”

Bezos says taxing him more isn’t the answer

Bezos also addressed the criticism often aimed directly at billionaires like him: that the ultra-wealthy should pay more.

With a net worth estimated at about $275 billion, Bezos has long been a target for critics who argue billionaires benefit from a tax system that treats wealth more favorably than wages.

Bezos rejected the idea that simply raising his tax bill would solve the problem facing lower-income Americans.

“These people sometimes say that I don’t pay taxes,” he said. “That’s not true. I pay billions of dollars in taxes.”

He added that he is willing to have a debate over whether he should pay more. But he argued that linking higher taxes on him to direct relief for ordinary workers is misleading.

“Don’t pretend you know that that’s going to solve the problem,” he said. “You could double the taxes I pay, and it’s not going to help that teacher in Queens — I promise you.”

The rich play a different tax game

Bezos’s comments put a spotlight on one of the biggest debates in America’s tax system.

Most workers earn wages. Taxes come out of every paycheck. Their income is visible, regular and hard to shield.

Yet for decades, high-net-worth individuals have used proven strategies — and specific types of assets — to legally slash what they owe to the IRS. According to a ProPublica report, some U.S. billionaires — including Bezos — paid little or no federal income tax in certain years relative to the vast wealth they accumulated over time.

That’s largely because billionaires build their wealth through assets — not wages. As the value of these assets rises, their net worth grows, but the U.S. tax system isn’t designed to fully capture those gains. Capital gains are typically taxed at lower rates than regular income, and taxes aren’t owed until the assets are sold.

In fact, as NYU Stern professor Scott Galloway once put it, if you’re trying to build wealth, you have “an obligation to pay as little tax as possible.”

One asset class America’s wealthy have relied on for decades is real estate — in part because of the generous tax treatment it receives.

When you earn rental income from an investment property, you can claim deductions for a wide range of expenses, such as mortgage interest, property taxes, insurance and ongoing maintenance and repairs.

Real estate investors also benefit from depreciation — a tax deduction that recognizes the gradual wear and tear of a property over time. Investors can also use tools like refinancing and 1031 exchanges to keep their capital compounding instead of cashing out.

Today, you don’t need to be a millionaire — or even to buy a single property outright — to invest in real estate. Crowdfunding platforms like mogul offer an easier way to get exposure to this income-generating asset class.

Mogul is a real estate investment platform offering fractional ownership in blue-chip rental properties, which gives investors monthly rental income, real-time appreciation and tax benefits — without the need for a hefty down payment or 3 a.m. tenant calls.

Founded by former Goldman Sachs real estate investors, the team hand-picks the top 1% of single-family rental homes nationwide for you. In other words, you gain access to institutional-quality offerings for a fraction of the usual cost.

Each property undergoes a rigorous vetting process, requiring a minimum 12% return even in downside scenarios. Across the board, the platform features an average annual IRR of 18.8%. Offerings often sell out in under three hours, with investments typically ranging between $15,000 and $40,000 per property.

You can sign up for an account and then browse available properties here.

Keep more of what you earn

The wealthy don’t just focus on what they invest in. They also pay close attention to where those investments sit. Using tax-advantaged retirement accounts can be a powerful way to keep more capital compounding over time.

For instance, traditional IRAs and Roth IRAs allow investments to grow either tax-deferred or tax-free, depending on the account type.

While many retirement accounts primarily hold stocks and mutual funds, some investors choose to diversify further. Ray Dalio, founder of the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, has repeatedly warned that many portfolios lack one key safe-haven asset: gold.

“People don’t have, typically, an adequate amount of gold in their portfolio,” Dalio told CNBC last year. “When bad times come, gold is a very effective diversifier.”

Long seen as the ultimate safe haven, gold isn’t tied to any single country, currency or economy. It can’t be created at will by central banks like fiat money, and in times of economic turmoil, market turbulence or geopolitical uncertainty, investors tend to pile in — driving up its value.

Despite a recent pullback, gold prices have surged by more than 40% over the last 12 months.

One way to invest in gold that can also provide significant tax advantages is to open a gold IRA with the help of Goldco.

Gold IRAs allow investors to hold physical gold or gold-related assets within a retirement account, thereby combining the tax advantages of an IRA with the protective benefits of investing in gold, making it a compelling potential option for those wanting to ensure their retirement funds are diversified during rough economic times.