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I just read that Jeff Bezoz will pay a lower tax rate than someone earning $7.25/hr. Incredible.

by grecy 7y ago

ctdonath 7y ago
He's also giving thousands of people jobs, making necessities available to millions at low prices, and paying enormous amounts in total taxes. Can gov't really do more with his money than he can? Do you really want to disincentivize what he does for humanity?
- pizza234 7y ago
  > He's also giving thousands of people jobs Enterpreneurs don't "give" jobs to people. Refer to the "wage labour" definition: > Wage labour is the socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer, where the worker sells their labour power under a formal or informal employment contract. precisely, they're purchasing labor. And actually, Bezos is puchasing it at a dirty cheap price.
  - ctdonath 7y ago
    Pedantic. He created a job opening, they accepted it. Ask NYC how terrible those 30,000 new Amazon jobs are ... oh right, they don't exist there because the "Bezos is a meanie" people drove them away. A job is better than no job. Bezos hired them to do something productive.
    - alphabettsy 7y ago
      I think it was residents didn’t want to pay millions or billions in incentives for jobs.
    - wycy 7y ago
      Incorrect. Amazon says it was not about the politics[0]. Plus, Amazon is still coming to NYC anyway, because there was still demand for an office there[1]. But now NYC gets it for free rather than paying billions in subsidies. [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/10/amazon-reveals-the-truth-on-why-it-nixed-ny-and-chose-virginia-for-hq2.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/10/amazon-reveals-the-truth-on-... [1] https://nypost.com/2019/05/27/amazon-is-reportedly-eyeing-office-space-on-manhattans-west-side/ https://nypost.com/2019/05/27/amazon-is-reportedly-eyeing-of...
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      The HQ2 jobs don't exist in Crystal City yet, either. Let's not count chickens before they hatch... particularly with Amazon quietly continuing to hatch chickens in NYC anyways. NYC doesn't seem like it's struggling to attract jobs.
- antidaily 7y ago
  What’s he doing with his money? He’s not paying workers out of his checking account.
  - ctdonath 7y ago
    Most of Bezos' money is invested in Amazon, investing in growth to create more jobs and better/cheaper goods & services. What he actually spends, funds jobs that exist because rich people exist and buy things others don't.
- cj 7y ago
  > He's also giving thousands of people jobs While also destroying jobs in the retail sector as brick and mortar stores are closing shop. > Do you really want to disincentivize what he does for humanity? This is such a broad question to directly answer. But in my opinion, a big part of Amazon's success has been at the expense of dozens of retail companies (Macy's stock price was $50+ 5 years ago, today it's $15, and the same trend exists for just about every large retailer). I'm sure a lot of people will disagree, but I much prefer an economy with many smaller companies competing in the market instead of one giant company controlled by 1 person dominating everything. I think the government should do more to incentivize healthy market competition (which Amazon is not), BUT I don't think the solution to that is more taxes..
- wycy 7y ago
  He's not giving away jobs as charity because he has money. The need for these jobs stems from the demand for the work produced by those jobs, not his on-hand availability of money. If he/Amazon didn't have the money on hand, they would just borrow it and/or raise investments.
- zpallin 7y ago
  What Jeff Bezos does for humanity: kill lots of small business owners, drive down wages, eliminate blue collar jobs, and amass entirely too much power and wealth for himself. Yes, I would like to "disincentivize" this.
GarrisonPrime 7y ago
I find that unlikely, since someone making $7.25/hr is probably not paying any income tax at all.
- geggam 7y ago
  If that was the only tax you would have a really good point
  - vonmoltke 7y ago
    That's the only tax the article is discussing.
  - zaroth 7y ago
    Neither point is good. If I only earn $50 a day and decide to buy a sandwich which has a meal tax of $1.00 - the problem isn’t that I just paid 5% of my earnings in sales taxes. The problem is I’m only earning $50 a day. But even more to the point is that that only way you can calculate that someone earning $15,000 a year is paying a “higher tax rate” than someone earning $15 million a year is by ignore the fact that the person earning $15k is year is getting EITC, food, and health care subsidies and has an effective negative tax rate even if they did actually pay a few hundred dollars in sales taxes. Here is a good analysis on average tax rates and effective marginal tax rates across income deciles: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44787.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44787.pdf Note that average effective tax rate is negative up through the 4th decile. (Figure 2) There are points along the curve where the effective marginal tax rate for a mid-range income earner is higher than the effective marginal tax rate of a high income earner. This is due to phase-out of transfer credits — specifically, ACA credits phasing out. (Figure 7) Specifically what that means is you earn an extra dollar and in addition to it being taxed at e.g. 25% it also causes you to lose .25 of ACA credits, making the effective tax rate on that $1 be 50%.
    - geggam 7y ago
      So what you are saying is until you hit the 4th decile you are working for a business who is subsidizing its payroll with tax dollars
ben509 7y ago
You're looking at a single number, his income tax rate. This is why high tax proponents are never satisfied: we can raise all kinds of rates, but there's always some tax that a "rich" (which is never well defined) person is not paying enough of.

I just read that Jeff Bezoz will pay a lower tax rate than someone earning $7.25/hr. Incredible.

by grecy 7y ago

I just read that Jeff Bezoz will pay a lower tax rate than someone earning $7.25/hr. Incredible.

He's also giving thousands of people jobs, making necessities available to millions at low prices, and paying enormous amounts in total taxes. Can gov't really do more with his money than he can? Do you really want to disincentivize what he does for humanity?

pizza234 7y ago
> He's also giving thousands of people jobs Enterpreneurs don't "give" jobs to people. Refer to the "wage labour" definition: > Wage labour is the socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer, where the worker sells their labour power under a formal or informal employment contract. precisely, they're purchasing labor. And actually, Bezos is puchasing it at a dirty cheap price.
- ctdonath 7y ago
  Pedantic. He created a job opening, they accepted it. Ask NYC how terrible those 30,000 new Amazon jobs are ... oh right, they don't exist there because the "Bezos is a meanie" people drove them away. A job is better than no job. Bezos hired them to do something productive.
  - alphabettsy 7y ago
    I think it was residents didn’t want to pay millions or billions in incentives for jobs.
  - wycy 7y ago
    Incorrect. Amazon says it was not about the politics[0]. Plus, Amazon is still coming to NYC anyway, because there was still demand for an office there[1]. But now NYC gets it for free rather than paying billions in subsidies. [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/10/amazon-reveals-the-truth-on-why-it-nixed-ny-and-chose-virginia-for-hq2.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/10/amazon-reveals-the-truth-on-... [1] https://nypost.com/2019/05/27/amazon-is-reportedly-eyeing-office-space-on-manhattans-west-side/ https://nypost.com/2019/05/27/amazon-is-reportedly-eyeing-of...
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    The HQ2 jobs don't exist in Crystal City yet, either. Let's not count chickens before they hatch... particularly with Amazon quietly continuing to hatch chickens in NYC anyways. NYC doesn't seem like it's struggling to attract jobs.
antidaily 7y ago
What’s he doing with his money? He’s not paying workers out of his checking account.
- ctdonath 7y ago
  Most of Bezos' money is invested in Amazon, investing in growth to create more jobs and better/cheaper goods & services. What he actually spends, funds jobs that exist because rich people exist and buy things others don't.
cj 7y ago
> He's also giving thousands of people jobs While also destroying jobs in the retail sector as brick and mortar stores are closing shop. > Do you really want to disincentivize what he does for humanity? This is such a broad question to directly answer. But in my opinion, a big part of Amazon's success has been at the expense of dozens of retail companies (Macy's stock price was $50+ 5 years ago, today it's $15, and the same trend exists for just about every large retailer). I'm sure a lot of people will disagree, but I much prefer an economy with many smaller companies competing in the market instead of one giant company controlled by 1 person dominating everything. I think the government should do more to incentivize healthy market competition (which Amazon is not), BUT I don't think the solution to that is more taxes..
wycy 7y ago
He's not giving away jobs as charity because he has money. The need for these jobs stems from the demand for the work produced by those jobs, not his on-hand availability of money. If he/Amazon didn't have the money on hand, they would just borrow it and/or raise investments.
zpallin 7y ago
What Jeff Bezos does for humanity: kill lots of small business owners, drive down wages, eliminate blue collar jobs, and amass entirely too much power and wealth for himself. Yes, I would like to "disincentivize" this.

GarrisonPrime 7y ago

I find that unlikely, since someone making $7.25/hr is probably not paying any income tax at all.

geggam 7y ago
If that was the only tax you would have a really good point
- vonmoltke 7y ago
  That's the only tax the article is discussing.
- zaroth 7y ago
  Neither point is good. If I only earn $50 a day and decide to buy a sandwich which has a meal tax of $1.00 - the problem isn’t that I just paid 5% of my earnings in sales taxes. The problem is I’m only earning $50 a day. But even more to the point is that that only way you can calculate that someone earning $15,000 a year is paying a “higher tax rate” than someone earning $15 million a year is by ignore the fact that the person earning $15k is year is getting EITC, food, and health care subsidies and has an effective negative tax rate even if they did actually pay a few hundred dollars in sales taxes. Here is a good analysis on average tax rates and effective marginal tax rates across income deciles: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44787.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44787.pdf Note that average effective tax rate is negative up through the 4th decile. (Figure 2) There are points along the curve where the effective marginal tax rate for a mid-range income earner is higher than the effective marginal tax rate of a high income earner. This is due to phase-out of transfer credits — specifically, ACA credits phasing out. (Figure 7) Specifically what that means is you earn an extra dollar and in addition to it being taxed at e.g. 25% it also causes you to lose .25 of ACA credits, making the effective tax rate on that $1 be 50%.
  - geggam 7y ago
    So what you are saying is until you hit the 4th decile you are working for a business who is subsidizing its payroll with tax dollars

ben509 7y ago

You're looking at a single number, his income tax rate. This is why high tax proponents are never satisfied: we can raise all kinds of rates, but there's always some tax that a "rich" (which is never well defined) person is not paying enough of.