London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Sunday, Sep 21, 2025

Wealthiest Americans including Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos 'paid no income tax'

Wealthiest Americans including Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos 'paid no income tax'

George Soros, known as the man who broke the Bank of England, reportedly paid no federal income tax over three years.

President Joe Biden is facing calls to introduce a wealth tax following a report alleging America's richest executives, including Elon Musk and Amazon's Jeff Bezos, have avoided paying income tax - some over several years.

ProPublica, the not-for-profit investigative journalism organisation, said its findings showed the tax bills were especially low when compared with their soaring wealth and other assets.

It calculated the wealth of the 25 richest Americans collectively jumped by $401bn (£283bn) from 2014 to 2018.

They paid, ProPublica said, $13.6bn (£9.6bn) in federal income taxes over those years - equal to just 3.4% of the increase in their overall fortunes.

Amazon founder and departing CEO Jeff Bezos.


This is down to tax strategies which are perfectly legal.

Tax avoidance measures can include reductions for charitable donations or by taking no wages - taxed at up to 37% - and benefiting instead mainly from investment income at a usual lower rate of 20%.

The report alleged that Amazon founder and departing CEO Jeff Bezos paid no income tax at all in 2007 and 2011.

It was the same for Tesla and Space X founder Elon Musk in 2018.

Members of the Patriotic Millionaires hold a federal tax filing day protest outside the apartment of Jeff Bezos, to demand he pay his fair share of taxes in May


The analysis showed financier George Soros - known by some as the man who broke the Bank of England because of a short sale on sterling that netted him $1bn in 1992 - went three straight years without paying federal income tax.

A spokesman for Mr Soros, who has supported higher taxes on the rich, told ProPublica that he had lost money on his investments from 2016 to 2018 and so did not owe federal income tax for those years.

Mr Musk, the AP news agency reported, responded to ProPublica's initial request for comment with a punctuation mark "?''.

America's tax system is under greater strain as Mr Biden embarks on a series of spending sprees, including a massive $2.3trn infrastructure programme, at a time when government borrowing has rocketed to pay for the 1COVID1-19 pandemic.

Financier George Soros - known by some as the man who broke the Bank of England


Democrat supporters used the publication of the ProPublica papers to demand the president introduce a tax on wealth rather than inflict more financial pain on ordinary households.

Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are among the cheerleaders.

Ms Warren tweeted on Tuesday: "Our tax system is rigged for billionaires who don't make their fortunes through income, like working families do.

"The evidence is abundantly clear: it is time for a #WealthTax in America to make the ultra-rich finally pay their fair share."

Mr Biden has previously ordered a crackdown on offshore tax evasion amid estimates the US government loses up to $120bn annually from individuals and corporations cheating the system.

However, a Senate finance committee hearing was told earlier in the day by the IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig that his team was "outgunned" when it came to enforcement.

The G7 group of wealthy democracies, which includes the US and Britain, agreed to support a global minimum corporate tax rate of at least 15% to deter multinational companies from avoiding taxes by stashing profits in low-rate countries.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
UK, Canada, and Australia Officially Recognise Palestine in Historic Shift
Alibaba Debuts Open-Source Deep Research Agent with Benchmarks Rivaling OpenAI
Marcos Faces Legacy-Defining Crisis as Flood Projects Scandal Sparks Massive Tide of Protests
China’s Micro-Drama Boom Turns Stalled Real Estate Projects into Lavish Film Sets
New Eye Drops Show Promise in Replacing Reading Glasses for Presbyopia
'Company Got 5,189 H-1B Visas, Then Laid Off 16,000 Americans': US Defends New $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee
Golf legend tells Omar she should be 'sent back to Somalia' after her Kirk comments
EU Set to Bar Big Tech from New Financial Data Access Scheme
China Bans Livestreaming and AI in Religion Amid Crackdown on Shaolin Temple Scandal
Documents Reveal Mandelson Failed to Declare Epstein-Funded Flights as MP in 2003
Dubai Property Boom Shows Strain as Flippers Get Buyer’s Remorse
Harris Memoir Sparks Backlash from Democrats for Blunt Critiques in ‘107 Days’
Germany Weighs Excluding France from Key European Fighter Jet Programme
Cyberattack Disrupts Check-in and Boarding Systems at Major European Airports
Japan’s ‘Death-Tainted’ Homes Gain Appeal as Prices Soar in Tokyo
Massive Attack Withdraws from Spotify Over Daniel Ek’s €600M Defence-AI Investment
Björn Borg Breaks Silence: Memoir Reveals Addiction, Shame and Cancer Battle
When Extremism Hijacks Idealism: How the Baader-Meinhof Gang Emerged and Fell
Top AI Researchers Are Heading Back to China as U.S. Struggles to Keep Pace
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
Trump Orders Third Lethal Strike on Drug-Trafficking Vessel as U.S. Expands Maritime Counter-Narcotics Operations
Trump Orders $100,000 Fee on H-1B Visas and Launches ‘Gold Card’ Immigration Pathway
Why Google Search Is Fading and AI Is Taking Its Place
UAE-US Stargate Project Poised to Make Abu Dhabi a Global AI Powerhouse
Federal Judge Dismisses Trump’s Fifteen-Billion-Dollar Suit Against New York Times, Orders Refile
France’s Looming Budget Crisis and Political Fracture Raise Fears of Becoming Europe’s “Sick Man”
Three Russian MiG-31 Jets Breach Estonian Airspace in ‘Unprecedentedly Brazen’ NATO Incident
DeepSeek Claims R1 Model Trained for only $294,000, Sparking Global Debate Over China’s AI Capabilities
SoftBank Vision Fund to Cut Nearly Twenty Percent of Staff in Bold AI Strategy Shift
Intel’s Next-Gen Manufacturing Gets a Lifeline from Nvidia’s Strategic $5B Deal
Erika Kirk Elected CEO of Turning Point USA After Husband Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
×