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> I’m all for people paying taxes they owe. I’m against vigilante style leaks when the target hasn’t committed a crime. This is the obvious consequence of a sy

> I’m all for people paying taxes they owe. I’m against vigilante style leaks when the target hasn’t committed a crime. This is the obvious consequence of a system that feels unfair and unresponsive via normal channels.

koheripbal 5y ago
I don't think these vague emotional statements are constructive. The rules outlined in the article apply to everyone, not just the rich, and they should be fixed for everyone, not just the rich. In this case leaking Jeff Bezos' tax returns targeted one individual and provided no new useful information. It's exactly what we already expected about his taxes. ...and frankly, the "rich are evil - look how they don't pay taxes on unrealized gains" is a huge distraction from fixing the actual problems with the tax system. We need to eliminate foreign tax havens, and severely limit non-profit "Foundations".
- whb07 5y ago
  “We need to eliminate foreign tax havens” or more succinctly: “We need to condemn the families and businesses in places like those tiny island nations in the Caribbean to more poverty” Those tax havens exist because they realize that a very real thing they can offer as a service is a place to domicile a business and capital. Not everyone wants to go to Ireland for its nice beaches you know.
  - rrss 5y ago
    How does Google funneling billions of dollars in revenue through Bermuda help the families there who are living in poverty? Google's only presence in Bermuda was a P.O. box.
    - Mediterraneo10 5y ago
      When you use Bermuda like that, you pay various fees to do so (registration fees, banking fees), and money ultimately goes into the national budget from that. The state then invests in infrastructure and some job creation from that national budget. Similarly, when Caribbean nations sell citizenship to foreigners seeking easier travel or tax optimization (another avenue they have explored into order to diversify their economies), the foreigner typically pays a fee in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for the passport, and that goes into the national budget.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - whb07 5y ago
      lawyers, buildings, contracts, the person selling keys for PO Box, guards to watch over your PO Box, mail system. Plus all the other things on top that are associated to flying in to Bermuda for the week of business to setup your PO BOX. Oh and then there’s the airport, staff to maintain the airport. All that plus more for a simple PO box
      - ashtonkem 5y ago
        It seems incredibly unseemly to go after the airport staff in the Bahamas more than the tax dodgers you’re angry at.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Retric 5y ago
  Rules aren’t set in stone, they can change based on leaks like this. Assuming people find this information objectionable that’s a reasonable justification to publish. In much the same way that leaking classified documents about questionable activities is morally justified, though illegal. Otherwise stamping secret on any evidence of say torture would work.
  - mc32 5y ago
    I find the leak objectionable. It doesn’t disclose any nefarious doings or tax evasion. All it does is verify what we already know. No revelation. So this is more about shaming the witch rather than showing the witch did witchery.
    - pmoriarty 5y ago
      "All it does is verify what we already know." Wait. What who already knows? I'm willing to bet that a lot of people who read this article did not already know the information contained within. As such the article serves to educate a lot of people, which is a positive development.
      - mc32 5y ago
        I don’t think the author needed leaked data to present their objections to tax minimization.
        ethbr0 5y ago
        They absolutely did. That something is legally within the bounds of the US tax code is public knowledge. That ultra-wealthy utilize something to an extent is not public knowledge. Which cuts to one of the central issues with viewing the US tax code as democratic: there's almost no transparency of use. The public might feel very different about a particular tax rule if they knew small businesses primarily used it, vs if they knew major corporations used it to shield 90% of their profits. The IRS should do a better job of anonymizing actual tax reports, and reporting out on patterns in aggregate.
- deelowe 5y ago
  At this point, I've come to believe that the real goal has nothing to do with actually fixing the system. I see it time and time again where articles like this get written and the proposals that follow focus solely on increasing income tax and proposing some form of a wealth tax. Nothing about closing the loop holes that allow this situation to happen in the first place.
- scubbo 5y ago
  > In this case leaking Jeff Bezos' tax returns targeted one individual and provided no new useful information. It's exactly what we already expected about his taxes. I completely agree with your overall point, but this statement is not true. Solid concrete evidence of what we "already expected" _is_ new information. (also, as other commenters have pointed out - what _you_ already expected is not necessarily what the average person already expected)
- NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
  >In this case leaking Jeff Bezos' tax returns targeted one individual and provided no new useful information. It's exactly what we already expected about his taxes. I think when he owns the Washington post, it becomes of the public interest. Hell, in Norway literally everyone's salary is public information. Hasn't seemed to do them any harm either.
mc32 5y ago
It’s still not acceptable. At least the tax minimizer is following applicable laws, this vigilante is not. They are taking it upon themselves outside the law to settle disagreements, but they want to leverage new laws to make taxes more aligned with their policy (but obviously they are okay with ignoring other parts of the law —that’s a disconnect).
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  I’m not a huge fan of gravity hurting me when I fall either, but I’ve found that railing against it is ineffective. If you want these things to stop, you need to change the incentives that people operate on. Anything else will be like trying to plug holes in a dam with your finger; locally effective at best.
- ivanbakel 5y ago
  You can believe in the power of a legal system without respecting the specific legal system that you're currently living under. Would it be a disconnect to illegally oppose an immoral law - like, say, the legal protection of slaves as property - while simultaneously wanting to pass laws that you expect people to follow - like, say, making slavery illegal? Probably not. It's inaccurate to treat obedience to the law as a moral act. It can only be moral because the law itself reflects moral attitudes. Wherever there is a disconnect between the law and morality, it is the law that bends - which is exactly why laws can be rewritten in the first place.
  - temp8964 5y ago
    What immoral law are you talking about? Allowing rich being rich? Too rich? You don't like rich being super rich? What immoral law is it? Be specific.
    - jessaustin 5y ago
      And Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
lordlimecat 5y ago
The correct response is to use your legislators to change the tax code to be more fair. Yelling at people for properly taking legal deductions, when you yourself take deductions on your taxes, reeks of hypocrisy and being mad because Joey got a cookie and you didn't.
- wang_li 5y ago
  >reeks of hypocrisy and being mad because Joey got a cookie and you didn't. You mean because Joey took his allowance and bought the supplies for a lemonade stand, took the money made from that to buy the ingredients to make cookies, then took the time to bake himself cookies. It's strange that people find a person who creates & grows a company and who pays hundreds of millions of dollars in legally required taxes detestable. Yet a person who fails to gain the basic education that is free to them, who has no ambition, who is literally a drain on society, cannot be criticized. It's astonishing to me that society accepts and allows people to not have a least a high school education. I wonder what the response would be to an article about how trillions in taxes are not paid because there are millions and millions of people who simply don't develop their personal capital and make decent choices that would result in them earning more and paying more in taxes.
  - iammisc 5y ago
    Don't know why you're being down voted. I have no love for bezos, but insofar as he seems to mostly follow the law, contribute to society, and built a large employer, he seems more worthy of emulation than the randos we are asked to care for on the government dole
  - ndiddy 5y ago
    I don’t know why you are being downvoted. If homeless people simply decided to learn Python and read PG essays for inspiration rather than being a drain on society, we could completely eliminate the homeless problem. Hopefully one day the troglodytes making up the rest of the world will catch up to our enlightened viewpoint.
    - 5y ago
jessedhillon 5y ago
There's nothing that can't be justified by this reasoning.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  You’re assuming I’m making a justification rather than an observation. That is incorrect.
justanotherguy0 5y ago
"feels unfair" depends completely on the Overton Window. What proportion of Americans have a federal income tax liability of zero or less? (Yes, some Americans get paid to file taxes, via "refundable" tax credits) I believe it is around 42%. What proportion of the top income earners pay 80% of Federal income taxes? Our system is overall quite progressive. To complain that the five or so people mentioned in the article "only" paid billions in taxes over a five year period is a bit nonsensical.
- vkou 5y ago
  Given that the federal government collects its revenue through income taxes, and that 53% of Americans are children, the elderly, students, retired, disabled, or simply unemployed, how many of those people, in your opinion, should have a federal tax liability? Also, another 13% of Americans make less than $12/hour, with many of them working under 30 hours a week. Roughly how many of those people, in your opinion, should have a federal tax liability?
- reedjosh 5y ago
  > "only" paid billions It was millions over the period of 2014 to 2018. Not that I disagree with your overall point. Bezos did almost pay $1b himself though. In total the people in the article paid under $2b.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  How would top income earners feel without employees or workers (either their own or everyone in every business they patronize)? I hate paying taxes. But I'm honest about what I'm buying for my money -- the broader community I live in and happen to like and care about.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  Our overall system is not progressive. Once you factor in the regressive nature of social security taxes and average sales taxes, you quickly see that the rate of taxes paid on all income remains fairly consistent up until you get to people with a net worth in tens of millions plus who pay a much lower percent rate.
noobermin 5y ago
See cancel culture, same thing. Bothered by "internet mobs?" Look at the underlying issues.

koheripbal 5y ago

I don't think these vague emotional statements are constructive. The rules outlined in the article apply to everyone, not just the rich, and they should be fixed for everyone, not just the rich. In this case leaking Jeff Bezos' tax returns targeted one individual and provided no new useful information. It's exactly what we already expected about his taxes. ...and frankly, the "rich are evil - look how they don't pay taxes on unrealized gains" is a huge distraction from fixing the actual problems with the tax system. We need to eliminate foreign tax havens, and severely limit non-profit "Foundations".

whb07 5y ago
“We need to eliminate foreign tax havens” or more succinctly: “We need to condemn the families and businesses in places like those tiny island nations in the Caribbean to more poverty” Those tax havens exist because they realize that a very real thing they can offer as a service is a place to domicile a business and capital. Not everyone wants to go to Ireland for its nice beaches you know.
- rrss 5y ago
  How does Google funneling billions of dollars in revenue through Bermuda help the families there who are living in poverty? Google's only presence in Bermuda was a P.O. box.
  - Mediterraneo10 5y ago
    When you use Bermuda like that, you pay various fees to do so (registration fees, banking fees), and money ultimately goes into the national budget from that. The state then invests in infrastructure and some job creation from that national budget. Similarly, when Caribbean nations sell citizenship to foreigners seeking easier travel or tax optimization (another avenue they have explored into order to diversify their economies), the foreigner typically pays a fee in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for the passport, and that goes into the national budget.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - whb07 5y ago
    lawyers, buildings, contracts, the person selling keys for PO Box, guards to watch over your PO Box, mail system. Plus all the other things on top that are associated to flying in to Bermuda for the week of business to setup your PO BOX. Oh and then there’s the airport, staff to maintain the airport. All that plus more for a simple PO box
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      It seems incredibly unseemly to go after the airport staff in the Bahamas more than the tax dodgers you’re angry at.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Retric 5y ago
Rules aren’t set in stone, they can change based on leaks like this. Assuming people find this information objectionable that’s a reasonable justification to publish. In much the same way that leaking classified documents about questionable activities is morally justified, though illegal. Otherwise stamping secret on any evidence of say torture would work.
- mc32 5y ago
  I find the leak objectionable. It doesn’t disclose any nefarious doings or tax evasion. All it does is verify what we already know. No revelation. So this is more about shaming the witch rather than showing the witch did witchery.
  - pmoriarty 5y ago
    "All it does is verify what we already know." Wait. What who already knows? I'm willing to bet that a lot of people who read this article did not already know the information contained within. As such the article serves to educate a lot of people, which is a positive development.
    - mc32 5y ago
      I don’t think the author needed leaked data to present their objections to tax minimization.
      - ethbr0 5y ago
        They absolutely did. That something is legally within the bounds of the US tax code is public knowledge. That ultra-wealthy utilize something to an extent is not public knowledge. Which cuts to one of the central issues with viewing the US tax code as democratic: there's almost no transparency of use. The public might feel very different about a particular tax rule if they knew small businesses primarily used it, vs if they knew major corporations used it to shield 90% of their profits. The IRS should do a better job of anonymizing actual tax reports, and reporting out on patterns in aggregate.
deelowe 5y ago
At this point, I've come to believe that the real goal has nothing to do with actually fixing the system. I see it time and time again where articles like this get written and the proposals that follow focus solely on increasing income tax and proposing some form of a wealth tax. Nothing about closing the loop holes that allow this situation to happen in the first place.
scubbo 5y ago
> In this case leaking Jeff Bezos' tax returns targeted one individual and provided no new useful information. It's exactly what we already expected about his taxes. I completely agree with your overall point, but this statement is not true. Solid concrete evidence of what we "already expected" _is_ new information. (also, as other commenters have pointed out - what _you_ already expected is not necessarily what the average person already expected)
NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
>In this case leaking Jeff Bezos' tax returns targeted one individual and provided no new useful information. It's exactly what we already expected about his taxes. I think when he owns the Washington post, it becomes of the public interest. Hell, in Norway literally everyone's salary is public information. Hasn't seemed to do them any harm either.

mc32 5y ago

It’s still not acceptable. At least the tax minimizer is following applicable laws, this vigilante is not. They are taking it upon themselves outside the law to settle disagreements, but they want to leverage new laws to make taxes more aligned with their policy (but obviously they are okay with ignoring other parts of the law —that’s a disconnect).

ashtonkem 5y ago
I’m not a huge fan of gravity hurting me when I fall either, but I’ve found that railing against it is ineffective. If you want these things to stop, you need to change the incentives that people operate on. Anything else will be like trying to plug holes in a dam with your finger; locally effective at best.
ivanbakel 5y ago
You can believe in the power of a legal system without respecting the specific legal system that you're currently living under. Would it be a disconnect to illegally oppose an immoral law - like, say, the legal protection of slaves as property - while simultaneously wanting to pass laws that you expect people to follow - like, say, making slavery illegal? Probably not. It's inaccurate to treat obedience to the law as a moral act. It can only be moral because the law itself reflects moral attitudes. Wherever there is a disconnect between the law and morality, it is the law that bends - which is exactly why laws can be rewritten in the first place.
- temp8964 5y ago
  What immoral law are you talking about? Allowing rich being rich? Too rich? You don't like rich being super rich? What immoral law is it? Be specific.
  - jessaustin 5y ago
    And Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

lordlimecat 5y ago

The correct response is to use your legislators to change the tax code to be more fair. Yelling at people for properly taking legal deductions, when you yourself take deductions on your taxes, reeks of hypocrisy and being mad because Joey got a cookie and you didn't.

wang_li 5y ago
>reeks of hypocrisy and being mad because Joey got a cookie and you didn't. You mean because Joey took his allowance and bought the supplies for a lemonade stand, took the money made from that to buy the ingredients to make cookies, then took the time to bake himself cookies. It's strange that people find a person who creates & grows a company and who pays hundreds of millions of dollars in legally required taxes detestable. Yet a person who fails to gain the basic education that is free to them, who has no ambition, who is literally a drain on society, cannot be criticized. It's astonishing to me that society accepts and allows people to not have a least a high school education. I wonder what the response would be to an article about how trillions in taxes are not paid because there are millions and millions of people who simply don't develop their personal capital and make decent choices that would result in them earning more and paying more in taxes.
- iammisc 5y ago
  Don't know why you're being down voted. I have no love for bezos, but insofar as he seems to mostly follow the law, contribute to society, and built a large employer, he seems more worthy of emulation than the randos we are asked to care for on the government dole
- ndiddy 5y ago
  I don’t know why you are being downvoted. If homeless people simply decided to learn Python and read PG essays for inspiration rather than being a drain on society, we could completely eliminate the homeless problem. Hopefully one day the troglodytes making up the rest of the world will catch up to our enlightened viewpoint.
  - 5y ago

jessedhillon 5y ago

There's nothing that can't be justified by this reasoning.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ashtonkem 5y ago
You’re assuming I’m making a justification rather than an observation. That is incorrect.

justanotherguy0 5y ago

"feels unfair" depends completely on the Overton Window. What proportion of Americans have a federal income tax liability of zero or less? (Yes, some Americans get paid to file taxes, via "refundable" tax credits) I believe it is around 42%. What proportion of the top income earners pay 80% of Federal income taxes? Our system is overall quite progressive. To complain that the five or so people mentioned in the article "only" paid billions in taxes over a five year period is a bit nonsensical.

vkou 5y ago
Given that the federal government collects its revenue through income taxes, and that 53% of Americans are children, the elderly, students, retired, disabled, or simply unemployed, how many of those people, in your opinion, should have a federal tax liability? Also, another 13% of Americans make less than $12/hour, with many of them working under 30 hours a week. Roughly how many of those people, in your opinion, should have a federal tax liability?
reedjosh 5y ago
> "only" paid billions It was millions over the period of 2014 to 2018. Not that I disagree with your overall point. Bezos did almost pay $1b himself though. In total the people in the article paid under $2b.
ethbr0 5y ago
How would top income earners feel without employees or workers (either their own or everyone in every business they patronize)? I hate paying taxes. But I'm honest about what I'm buying for my money -- the broader community I live in and happen to like and care about.
HWR_14 5y ago
Our overall system is not progressive. Once you factor in the regressive nature of social security taxes and average sales taxes, you quickly see that the rate of taxes paid on all income remains fairly consistent up until you get to people with a net worth in tens of millions plus who pay a much lower percent rate.

noobermin 5y ago

See cancel culture, same thing. Bothered by "internet mobs?" Look at the underlying issues.