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Northern Ireland27463 Posts
On May 21 2026 23:49 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2026 23:45 WombaT wrote:On May 21 2026 23:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:15 misirlou wrote:it's been 10 pages, should the thread get renamed to US mathematics mega thread? + Show Spoiler +- this reminds me of a situation when I was a kid, involving the current secretary-general of the UN, Antonio Guterres. At the time he was portuguese prime minister and got asked how much he had reduced the deficit in numbers.
"Well, the GDP is 3 billion bucks, 6% of that - 6 times 3 is 18, carry the 0s, just need to do the math"
. yes the math was going correct, you can divide by 100 and multiply by 6 (order dont matter) but he was still clowned for that Like I said, catnip to this crowd haha. Any chance we could get this mathfest to breakdown why Jeff Bezos tax proposition isn't as benevolent as he tried to make it sound? Jeff Bezos says bottom half of earners should pay zero in income taxes
The top 1% of taxpayers pay about 40% of all the tax revenue, and the bottom half pay 3%, Bezos told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on “Squawk Box.”
“I don’t think it should be 3%,” Bezos said. “I think it should be zero.”
...
Bezos said the income tax paid by lower earners is “a small amount of money for the government,” and offered the hypothetical example of a healthcare worker who makes $75,000 a year.
“We shouldn’t be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington,” he said. “They should be sending her an apology. It really makes no sense.”
He said he would “advocate” for such a change, but did not offer details on how lawmakers might enact it.
Bezos is the world’s fourth-richest person, with a net worth around $269 billion, according to Forbes https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/20/jeff-bezos-income-taxes.html What is your objection to Bezos’ pontificating? He's obviously exploiting people's ignorance to sound benevolent instead of insatiably greedy. It's basically what Trump is doing but without any ambiguity around whether he's oblivious to the actual math. Also it's the kind of thing someone like Fetterman would love as a "compromise".
Ignorance of what?
Usually people make their critique first and open comment second, not the other way around.
I’m unsure how US tax regimes work, and they vary across locales. At least in the UK the very poorest are hit far harder by sales tax (VAT) and other such mechanisms proportionally than by income tax, which you don’t even pay up to a certain threshold anyway. And do you include healthcare as a tax (which I would)
Cutting income thresholds in my native UK is better than nout, it’s not really making a meaningful dent though versus other factors.
There’s way too much focus in the discourse about income tax (hey the 1% pay loads), to the exclusion of all sorts of other taxes that considerably pull up the contributions of low earners proportionally. Wonder why that could possibly be…
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On May 21 2026 23:56 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2026 23:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:45 WombaT wrote:On May 21 2026 23:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:15 misirlou wrote:it's been 10 pages, should the thread get renamed to US mathematics mega thread? + Show Spoiler +- this reminds me of a situation when I was a kid, involving the current secretary-general of the UN, Antonio Guterres. At the time he was portuguese prime minister and got asked how much he had reduced the deficit in numbers.
"Well, the GDP is 3 billion bucks, 6% of that - 6 times 3 is 18, carry the 0s, just need to do the math"
. yes the math was going correct, you can divide by 100 and multiply by 6 (order dont matter) but he was still clowned for that Like I said, catnip to this crowd haha. Any chance we could get this mathfest to breakdown why Jeff Bezos tax proposition isn't as benevolent as he tried to make it sound? Jeff Bezos says bottom half of earners should pay zero in income taxes
The top 1% of taxpayers pay about 40% of all the tax revenue, and the bottom half pay 3%, Bezos told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on “Squawk Box.”
“I don’t think it should be 3%,” Bezos said. “I think it should be zero.”
...
Bezos said the income tax paid by lower earners is “a small amount of money for the government,” and offered the hypothetical example of a healthcare worker who makes $75,000 a year.
“We shouldn’t be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington,” he said. “They should be sending her an apology. It really makes no sense.”
He said he would “advocate” for such a change, but did not offer details on how lawmakers might enact it.
Bezos is the world’s fourth-richest person, with a net worth around $269 billion, according to Forbes https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/20/jeff-bezos-income-taxes.html What is your objection to Bezos’ pontificating? He's obviously exploiting people's ignorance to sound benevolent instead of insatiably greedy. It's basically what Trump is doing but without any ambiguity around whether he's oblivious to the actual math. Also it's the kind of thing someone like Fetterman would love as a "compromise". I love how you add all that context when all he said is 'poor people barely pay taxes, why have them pay any at all'. whats the compromise considering hes musing don't go further then the above.
*Sigh* It worked...It's misdirection.
I suppose the particular media outlet's presentation helped him a bit with that.
Jeff Bezos says raising taxes on the wealthy wouldn’t help the average American
“What’s happening here is politicians are ... picking a villain and pointing fingers,” Amazon’s executive chair said.
“You could double the taxes I pay, and it’s not going to help that teacher in Queens,” Bezos said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/corporations/jeff-bezos-taxes-mamdani-billionaires-rcna346090
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On May 21 2026 23:57 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2026 23:48 Gorsameth wrote:On May 21 2026 23:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:15 misirlou wrote:it's been 10 pages, should the thread get renamed to US mathematics mega thread? + Show Spoiler +- this reminds me of a situation when I was a kid, involving the current secretary-general of the UN, Antonio Guterres. At the time he was portuguese prime minister and got asked how much he had reduced the deficit in numbers.
"Well, the GDP is 3 billion bucks, 6% of that - 6 times 3 is 18, carry the 0s, just need to do the math"
. yes the math was going correct, you can divide by 100 and multiply by 6 (order dont matter) but he was still clowned for that Like I said, catnip to this crowd haha. Any chance we could get this mathfest to breakdown why Jeff Bezos tax proposition isn't as benevolent as he tried to make it sound? Jeff Bezos says bottom half of earners should pay zero in income taxes
The top 1% of taxpayers pay about 40% of all the tax revenue, and the bottom half pay 3%, Bezos told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on “Squawk Box.”
“I don’t think it should be 3%,” Bezos said. “I think it should be zero.”
...
Bezos said the income tax paid by lower earners is “a small amount of money for the government,” and offered the hypothetical example of a healthcare worker who makes $75,000 a year.
“We shouldn’t be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington,” he said. “They should be sending her an apology. It really makes no sense.”
He said he would “advocate” for such a change, but did not offer details on how lawmakers might enact it.
Bezos is the world’s fourth-richest person, with a net worth around $269 billion, according to Forbes https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/20/jeff-bezos-income-taxes.html hard to discuss a tax plan without a plan... Should the rich pay more and the poor pay less? Yes. Any other questions? The CNBC article describes it this way: Show nested quote +‘A tale of two economies’
While the bottom half of earners have a lower tax burden, their struggles have been more pronounced amid higher inflation and broader concerns about affordability.
The so-called K-shaped economy illustrates Americans’ diverging experiences: Higher-income households continue to benefit from rising markets and wages, while many lower- and middle-income consumers struggle with higher costs and financial strain.
Federal Reserve Bank of New York research shows that the expiration of pandemic-era subsidies for low- and middle-income households created a noticeable divergence in 2023. More recently, sharply higher gasoline prices amid the Iran war are exacerbating the K-shape, researchers found. Lower earners spend a greater share of their incomes on gasoline relative to higher earners.
“I think what’s going on is that it’s kind of a tale of two economies, so you have a bunch of people in this country who are doing really well, but you also have a bunch of people in this country who are struggling,” Bezos said.
The notion of whether the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes relative to lower earners has long been a subject of fierce debate.
Critics of raising taxes on higher earners often point to the progressive nature of the federal tax code.
For example, the top 1% of taxpayers accounted for nearly 21% of total adjusted gross income in 2023 — but paid a much larger share, about 38%, of all federal income taxes that year, according to the Tax Foundation, citing IRS data.
Meanwhile, the bottom half of taxpayers accounted for 12% of total income, but just 3% of total income taxes paid.
Placing a higher tax burden on the rich may reduce the amount of money that they save and invest, according to Thomas Savidge, a research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, a free market think tank that promotes limited government.
That saving and investment activity generally “creates access to capital for all, allowing people to create and innovate, making everyone wealthier,” he wrote in 2025.
However, high earners often use the “intricacies of the tax code” to cut their IRS bills, and they pay an effective rate that is “far less” than the rate they must pay on paper, according to a 2024 report by the Yale University Budget Lab.
That said, tax burdens can range widely even among the richest households, it found.
For example, some taxpayers in the top 1% pay an effective tax rate of 3% while others pay as high as 45%, according to the Budget Lab’s analysis.
Some groups in favor of raising taxes on the wealthy say that the U.S. tax system isn’t as progressive as it may seem, when taking a more holistic view of household taxes beyond the personal income tax.
Payroll taxes are the biggest levy that many people pay, and those for Social Security aren’t owed on income above $184,500, according to a recent blog post by Jessica Vela, a federal policy analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a progressive think tank. Million-dollar earners stopped paying into Social Security for 2026 in early March, the Center for Economic and Policy Research estimated.
Low earners also spend a greater share of their income on sales taxes at the state and local level relative to higher earners, contributing to a more regressive tax system, Vela wrote.
When accounting for all federal, state and local taxes paid by U.S. households, the top 1% account for 24% of total tax revenue — only slightly higher than their share of reported income, 20%, according to an ITEP analysis in 2024.
This doesn’t account for so-called unrealized capital gains, or the untaxed profits from stocks and other assets that are disproportionately owned by the wealthy, according to the analysis. The idea was for people to use their expertise in math, taxes, and education to address/explain it with the vigor they did Trump's shitmath for the benefit of everyone, including the impressionable lurkers  . In part because he's obviously exploiting people's ignorance to sound benevolent instead of insatiably greedy. It's basically what Trump is doing but without any ambiguity around whether he's oblivious to the actual math. Also it's the kind of thing someone like Fetterman would love as a "compromise". + Show Spoiler +Understandable if people's personal animosity takes precedence though. Yes, the article contains nothing about what his actual plan is or what faulty 'compromise' your alluding to. Repeating the same shit you said in the exact same words when asked the clarify is why no one has discussions with you.
So please, go and try again.
Edit: I love how your now linking a completely different article with a complete different opinion.
Gee maybe lead with the actual article you want to discuss rather then something completely different next time... gees.
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On May 21 2026 23:40 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2026 23:15 misirlou wrote:it's been 10 pages, should the thread get renamed to US mathematics mega thread? + Show Spoiler +- this reminds me of a situation when I was a kid, involving the current secretary-general of the UN, Antonio Guterres. At the time he was portuguese prime minister and got asked how much he had reduced the deficit in numbers.
"Well, the GDP is 3 billion bucks, 6% of that - 6 times 3 is 18, carry the 0s, just need to do the math"
. yes the math was going correct, you can divide by 100 and multiply by 6 (order dont matter) but he was still clowned for that Like I said, catnip to this crowd haha. Any chance we could get this mathfest to breakdown why Jeff Bezos tax proposition isn't as benevolent as he tried to make it sound? Show nested quote +Jeff Bezos says bottom half of earners should pay zero in income taxes
The top 1% of taxpayers pay about 40% of all the tax revenue, and the bottom half pay 3%, Bezos told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on “Squawk Box.”
“I don’t think it should be 3%,” Bezos said. “I think it should be zero.”
...
Bezos said the income tax paid by lower earners is “a small amount of money for the government,” and offered the hypothetical example of a healthcare worker who makes $75,000 a year.
“We shouldn’t be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington,” he said. “They should be sending her an apology. It really makes no sense.”
He said he would “advocate” for such a change, but did not offer details on how lawmakers might enact it.
Bezos is the world’s fourth-richest person, with a net worth around $269 billion, according to Forbes https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/20/jeff-bezos-income-taxes.html
No deep maths necessary. Ultrarich people love income tax, because it is not wealth tax. Ultra rich people usually don't have a lot of income. They gain money in other ways, and have ways to make sure that the way they gain money isn't counted as "income" that is taxed.
Any type of income tax is neglectable to them. What would really hurt their wallet is a tax based on the stuff they own. Which is why they love talking about details of income tax distribution.
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On May 22 2026 00:06 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2026 23:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:48 Gorsameth wrote:On May 21 2026 23:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:15 misirlou wrote:it's been 10 pages, should the thread get renamed to US mathematics mega thread? + Show Spoiler +- this reminds me of a situation when I was a kid, involving the current secretary-general of the UN, Antonio Guterres. At the time he was portuguese prime minister and got asked how much he had reduced the deficit in numbers.
"Well, the GDP is 3 billion bucks, 6% of that - 6 times 3 is 18, carry the 0s, just need to do the math"
. yes the math was going correct, you can divide by 100 and multiply by 6 (order dont matter) but he was still clowned for that Like I said, catnip to this crowd haha. Any chance we could get this mathfest to breakdown why Jeff Bezos tax proposition isn't as benevolent as he tried to make it sound? Jeff Bezos says bottom half of earners should pay zero in income taxes
The top 1% of taxpayers pay about 40% of all the tax revenue, and the bottom half pay 3%, Bezos told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on “Squawk Box.”
“I don’t think it should be 3%,” Bezos said. “I think it should be zero.”
...
Bezos said the income tax paid by lower earners is “a small amount of money for the government,” and offered the hypothetical example of a healthcare worker who makes $75,000 a year.
“We shouldn’t be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington,” he said. “They should be sending her an apology. It really makes no sense.”
He said he would “advocate” for such a change, but did not offer details on how lawmakers might enact it.
Bezos is the world’s fourth-richest person, with a net worth around $269 billion, according to Forbes https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/20/jeff-bezos-income-taxes.html hard to discuss a tax plan without a plan... Should the rich pay more and the poor pay less? Yes. Any other questions? The CNBC article describes it this way: ‘A tale of two economies’
While the bottom half of earners have a lower tax burden, their struggles have been more pronounced amid higher inflation and broader concerns about affordability.
The so-called K-shaped economy illustrates Americans’ diverging experiences: Higher-income households continue to benefit from rising markets and wages, while many lower- and middle-income consumers struggle with higher costs and financial strain.
Federal Reserve Bank of New York research shows that the expiration of pandemic-era subsidies for low- and middle-income households created a noticeable divergence in 2023. More recently, sharply higher gasoline prices amid the Iran war are exacerbating the K-shape, researchers found. Lower earners spend a greater share of their incomes on gasoline relative to higher earners.
“I think what’s going on is that it’s kind of a tale of two economies, so you have a bunch of people in this country who are doing really well, but you also have a bunch of people in this country who are struggling,” Bezos said.
The notion of whether the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes relative to lower earners has long been a subject of fierce debate.
Critics of raising taxes on higher earners often point to the progressive nature of the federal tax code.
For example, the top 1% of taxpayers accounted for nearly 21% of total adjusted gross income in 2023 — but paid a much larger share, about 38%, of all federal income taxes that year, according to the Tax Foundation, citing IRS data.
Meanwhile, the bottom half of taxpayers accounted for 12% of total income, but just 3% of total income taxes paid.
Placing a higher tax burden on the rich may reduce the amount of money that they save and invest, according to Thomas Savidge, a research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, a free market think tank that promotes limited government.
That saving and investment activity generally “creates access to capital for all, allowing people to create and innovate, making everyone wealthier,” he wrote in 2025.
However, high earners often use the “intricacies of the tax code” to cut their IRS bills, and they pay an effective rate that is “far less” than the rate they must pay on paper, according to a 2024 report by the Yale University Budget Lab.
That said, tax burdens can range widely even among the richest households, it found.
For example, some taxpayers in the top 1% pay an effective tax rate of 3% while others pay as high as 45%, according to the Budget Lab’s analysis.
Some groups in favor of raising taxes on the wealthy say that the U.S. tax system isn’t as progressive as it may seem, when taking a more holistic view of household taxes beyond the personal income tax.
Payroll taxes are the biggest levy that many people pay, and those for Social Security aren’t owed on income above $184,500, according to a recent blog post by Jessica Vela, a federal policy analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a progressive think tank. Million-dollar earners stopped paying into Social Security for 2026 in early March, the Center for Economic and Policy Research estimated.
Low earners also spend a greater share of their income on sales taxes at the state and local level relative to higher earners, contributing to a more regressive tax system, Vela wrote.
When accounting for all federal, state and local taxes paid by U.S. households, the top 1% account for 24% of total tax revenue — only slightly higher than their share of reported income, 20%, according to an ITEP analysis in 2024.
This doesn’t account for so-called unrealized capital gains, or the untaxed profits from stocks and other assets that are disproportionately owned by the wealthy, according to the analysis. The idea was for people to use their expertise in math, taxes, and education to address/explain it with the vigor they did Trump's shitmath for the benefit of everyone, including the impressionable lurkers . In part because he's obviously exploiting people's ignorance to sound benevolent instead of insatiably greedy. It's basically what Trump is doing but without any ambiguity around whether he's oblivious to the actual math. Also it's the kind of thing someone like Fetterman would love as a "compromise". + Show Spoiler +Understandable if people's personal animosity takes precedence though. Yes, the article contains nothing about what his actual plan is or what faulty 'compromise' your alluding to. Repeating the same shit you said in the exact same words when asked the clarify is why no one has discussions with you. So please, go and try again.
The "compromise" is taking what ostensibly sounds like a tax cut for half the population to ease their economic burdens instead of meaningfully raising taxes on the wealthy to develop a healthy society and infrastructure that benefits them rather than facilitating the continued extraction of wealth from workers.
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On May 22 2026 00:05 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2026 23:56 Gorsameth wrote:On May 21 2026 23:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:45 WombaT wrote:On May 21 2026 23:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:15 misirlou wrote:it's been 10 pages, should the thread get renamed to US mathematics mega thread? + Show Spoiler +- this reminds me of a situation when I was a kid, involving the current secretary-general of the UN, Antonio Guterres. At the time he was portuguese prime minister and got asked how much he had reduced the deficit in numbers.
"Well, the GDP is 3 billion bucks, 6% of that - 6 times 3 is 18, carry the 0s, just need to do the math"
. yes the math was going correct, you can divide by 100 and multiply by 6 (order dont matter) but he was still clowned for that Like I said, catnip to this crowd haha. Any chance we could get this mathfest to breakdown why Jeff Bezos tax proposition isn't as benevolent as he tried to make it sound? Jeff Bezos says bottom half of earners should pay zero in income taxes
The top 1% of taxpayers pay about 40% of all the tax revenue, and the bottom half pay 3%, Bezos told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on “Squawk Box.”
“I don’t think it should be 3%,” Bezos said. “I think it should be zero.”
...
Bezos said the income tax paid by lower earners is “a small amount of money for the government,” and offered the hypothetical example of a healthcare worker who makes $75,000 a year.
“We shouldn’t be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington,” he said. “They should be sending her an apology. It really makes no sense.”
He said he would “advocate” for such a change, but did not offer details on how lawmakers might enact it.
Bezos is the world’s fourth-richest person, with a net worth around $269 billion, according to Forbes https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/20/jeff-bezos-income-taxes.html What is your objection to Bezos’ pontificating? He's obviously exploiting people's ignorance to sound benevolent instead of insatiably greedy. It's basically what Trump is doing but without any ambiguity around whether he's oblivious to the actual math. Also it's the kind of thing someone like Fetterman would love as a "compromise". I love how you add all that context when all he said is 'poor people barely pay taxes, why have them pay any at all'. whats the compromise considering hes musing don't go further then the above. *Sigh* It worked...It's misdirection. I suppose the particular media outlet's presentation helped him a bit with that. Show nested quote +Jeff Bezos says raising taxes on the wealthy wouldn’t help the average American
“What’s happening here is politicians are ... picking a villain and pointing fingers,” Amazon’s executive chair said.
“You could double the taxes I pay, and it’s not going to help that teacher in Queens,” Bezos said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” https://www.nbcnews.com/business/corporations/jeff-bezos-taxes-mamdani-billionaires-rcna346090 Yes, tax wealth not income. Again, not sure there is much discussion to be had here. 99% of the participants in this thread are going to agree that the rich should pay more.
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Northern Ireland27463 Posts
On May 22 2026 00:06 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2026 23:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:15 misirlou wrote:it's been 10 pages, should the thread get renamed to US mathematics mega thread? + Show Spoiler +- this reminds me of a situation when I was a kid, involving the current secretary-general of the UN, Antonio Guterres. At the time he was portuguese prime minister and got asked how much he had reduced the deficit in numbers.
"Well, the GDP is 3 billion bucks, 6% of that - 6 times 3 is 18, carry the 0s, just need to do the math"
. yes the math was going correct, you can divide by 100 and multiply by 6 (order dont matter) but he was still clowned for that Like I said, catnip to this crowd haha. Any chance we could get this mathfest to breakdown why Jeff Bezos tax proposition isn't as benevolent as he tried to make it sound? Jeff Bezos says bottom half of earners should pay zero in income taxes
The top 1% of taxpayers pay about 40% of all the tax revenue, and the bottom half pay 3%, Bezos told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on “Squawk Box.”
“I don’t think it should be 3%,” Bezos said. “I think it should be zero.”
...
Bezos said the income tax paid by lower earners is “a small amount of money for the government,” and offered the hypothetical example of a healthcare worker who makes $75,000 a year.
“We shouldn’t be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington,” he said. “They should be sending her an apology. It really makes no sense.”
He said he would “advocate” for such a change, but did not offer details on how lawmakers might enact it.
Bezos is the world’s fourth-richest person, with a net worth around $269 billion, according to Forbes https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/20/jeff-bezos-income-taxes.html No deep maths necessary. Ultrarich people love income tax, because it is not wealth tax. Ultra rich people usually don't have a lot of income. They gain money in other ways, and have ways to make sure that the way they gain money isn't counted as "income" that is taxed. Any type of income tax is neglectable to them. What would really hurt their wallet is a tax based on the stuff they own. Which is why they love talking about details of income tax distribution.
Yep, their power in capitalism comes from well, the capital they own. And their interests financially with said capital can be diametrically opposed to those of poor folk, and they’re wealthy enough to pay folks to figure out every possible loophole they can expose, make them more likely to win legal challenges etc.
That’s your problem right there, there’s a feedback loop.
You could have a hypothetical billionaire who lived in a single mega mansion they built, and just went around buying cool shit with their money and that’s not detrimental to poorer folks, indeed it might be stimulative in various locales they spent it. That could be a thing
The problem is accumulation of assets and capital, because it affects the ability of others to obtain them. And if you wanna actually rebalance things, which clearly isn’t happening anytime soon in the US and many other places, it’s not that dynamic you gotta address
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Northern Ireland27463 Posts
On May 22 2026 00:12 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2026 00:06 Gorsameth wrote:On May 21 2026 23:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:48 Gorsameth wrote:On May 21 2026 23:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:15 misirlou wrote:it's been 10 pages, should the thread get renamed to US mathematics mega thread? + Show Spoiler +- this reminds me of a situation when I was a kid, involving the current secretary-general of the UN, Antonio Guterres. At the time he was portuguese prime minister and got asked how much he had reduced the deficit in numbers.
"Well, the GDP is 3 billion bucks, 6% of that - 6 times 3 is 18, carry the 0s, just need to do the math"
. yes the math was going correct, you can divide by 100 and multiply by 6 (order dont matter) but he was still clowned for that Like I said, catnip to this crowd haha. Any chance we could get this mathfest to breakdown why Jeff Bezos tax proposition isn't as benevolent as he tried to make it sound? Jeff Bezos says bottom half of earners should pay zero in income taxes
The top 1% of taxpayers pay about 40% of all the tax revenue, and the bottom half pay 3%, Bezos told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on “Squawk Box.”
“I don’t think it should be 3%,” Bezos said. “I think it should be zero.”
...
Bezos said the income tax paid by lower earners is “a small amount of money for the government,” and offered the hypothetical example of a healthcare worker who makes $75,000 a year.
“We shouldn’t be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington,” he said. “They should be sending her an apology. It really makes no sense.”
He said he would “advocate” for such a change, but did not offer details on how lawmakers might enact it.
Bezos is the world’s fourth-richest person, with a net worth around $269 billion, according to Forbes https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/20/jeff-bezos-income-taxes.html hard to discuss a tax plan without a plan... Should the rich pay more and the poor pay less? Yes. Any other questions? The CNBC article describes it this way: ‘A tale of two economies’
While the bottom half of earners have a lower tax burden, their struggles have been more pronounced amid higher inflation and broader concerns about affordability.
The so-called K-shaped economy illustrates Americans’ diverging experiences: Higher-income households continue to benefit from rising markets and wages, while many lower- and middle-income consumers struggle with higher costs and financial strain.
Federal Reserve Bank of New York research shows that the expiration of pandemic-era subsidies for low- and middle-income households created a noticeable divergence in 2023. More recently, sharply higher gasoline prices amid the Iran war are exacerbating the K-shape, researchers found. Lower earners spend a greater share of their incomes on gasoline relative to higher earners.
“I think what’s going on is that it’s kind of a tale of two economies, so you have a bunch of people in this country who are doing really well, but you also have a bunch of people in this country who are struggling,” Bezos said.
The notion of whether the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes relative to lower earners has long been a subject of fierce debate.
Critics of raising taxes on higher earners often point to the progressive nature of the federal tax code.
For example, the top 1% of taxpayers accounted for nearly 21% of total adjusted gross income in 2023 — but paid a much larger share, about 38%, of all federal income taxes that year, according to the Tax Foundation, citing IRS data.
Meanwhile, the bottom half of taxpayers accounted for 12% of total income, but just 3% of total income taxes paid.
Placing a higher tax burden on the rich may reduce the amount of money that they save and invest, according to Thomas Savidge, a research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, a free market think tank that promotes limited government.
That saving and investment activity generally “creates access to capital for all, allowing people to create and innovate, making everyone wealthier,” he wrote in 2025.
However, high earners often use the “intricacies of the tax code” to cut their IRS bills, and they pay an effective rate that is “far less” than the rate they must pay on paper, according to a 2024 report by the Yale University Budget Lab.
That said, tax burdens can range widely even among the richest households, it found.
For example, some taxpayers in the top 1% pay an effective tax rate of 3% while others pay as high as 45%, according to the Budget Lab’s analysis.
Some groups in favor of raising taxes on the wealthy say that the U.S. tax system isn’t as progressive as it may seem, when taking a more holistic view of household taxes beyond the personal income tax.
Payroll taxes are the biggest levy that many people pay, and those for Social Security aren’t owed on income above $184,500, according to a recent blog post by Jessica Vela, a federal policy analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a progressive think tank. Million-dollar earners stopped paying into Social Security for 2026 in early March, the Center for Economic and Policy Research estimated.
Low earners also spend a greater share of their income on sales taxes at the state and local level relative to higher earners, contributing to a more regressive tax system, Vela wrote.
When accounting for all federal, state and local taxes paid by U.S. households, the top 1% account for 24% of total tax revenue — only slightly higher than their share of reported income, 20%, according to an ITEP analysis in 2024.
This doesn’t account for so-called unrealized capital gains, or the untaxed profits from stocks and other assets that are disproportionately owned by the wealthy, according to the analysis. The idea was for people to use their expertise in math, taxes, and education to address/explain it with the vigor they did Trump's shitmath for the benefit of everyone, including the impressionable lurkers . In part because he's obviously exploiting people's ignorance to sound benevolent instead of insatiably greedy. It's basically what Trump is doing but without any ambiguity around whether he's oblivious to the actual math. Also it's the kind of thing someone like Fetterman would love as a "compromise". + Show Spoiler +Understandable if people's personal animosity takes precedence though. Yes, the article contains nothing about what his actual plan is or what faulty 'compromise' your alluding to. Repeating the same shit you said in the exact same words when asked the clarify is why no one has discussions with you. So please, go and try again. The "compromise" is taking what ostensibly sounds like a tax cut for half the population to ease their economic burdens instead of meaningfully raising taxes on the wealthy to develop a healthy society and infrastructure that benefits them rather than facilitating the continued extraction of wealth from workers.
Was it that much of an imposition to include this reasonable observation in your first post?
|
On May 22 2026 00:12 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2026 00:05 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:56 Gorsameth wrote:On May 21 2026 23:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:45 WombaT wrote:On May 21 2026 23:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:15 misirlou wrote:it's been 10 pages, should the thread get renamed to US mathematics mega thread? + Show Spoiler +- this reminds me of a situation when I was a kid, involving the current secretary-general of the UN, Antonio Guterres. At the time he was portuguese prime minister and got asked how much he had reduced the deficit in numbers.
"Well, the GDP is 3 billion bucks, 6% of that - 6 times 3 is 18, carry the 0s, just need to do the math"
. yes the math was going correct, you can divide by 100 and multiply by 6 (order dont matter) but he was still clowned for that Like I said, catnip to this crowd haha. Any chance we could get this mathfest to breakdown why Jeff Bezos tax proposition isn't as benevolent as he tried to make it sound? Jeff Bezos says bottom half of earners should pay zero in income taxes
The top 1% of taxpayers pay about 40% of all the tax revenue, and the bottom half pay 3%, Bezos told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on “Squawk Box.”
“I don’t think it should be 3%,” Bezos said. “I think it should be zero.”
...
Bezos said the income tax paid by lower earners is “a small amount of money for the government,” and offered the hypothetical example of a healthcare worker who makes $75,000 a year.
“We shouldn’t be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington,” he said. “They should be sending her an apology. It really makes no sense.”
He said he would “advocate” for such a change, but did not offer details on how lawmakers might enact it.
Bezos is the world’s fourth-richest person, with a net worth around $269 billion, according to Forbes https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/20/jeff-bezos-income-taxes.html What is your objection to Bezos’ pontificating? He's obviously exploiting people's ignorance to sound benevolent instead of insatiably greedy. It's basically what Trump is doing but without any ambiguity around whether he's oblivious to the actual math. Also it's the kind of thing someone like Fetterman would love as a "compromise". I love how you add all that context when all he said is 'poor people barely pay taxes, why have them pay any at all'. whats the compromise considering hes musing don't go further then the above. *Sigh* It worked...It's misdirection. I suppose the particular media outlet's presentation helped him a bit with that. Jeff Bezos says raising taxes on the wealthy wouldn’t help the average American
“What’s happening here is politicians are ... picking a villain and pointing fingers,” Amazon’s executive chair said.
“You could double the taxes I pay, and it’s not going to help that teacher in Queens,” Bezos said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” https://www.nbcnews.com/business/corporations/jeff-bezos-taxes-mamdani-billionaires-rcna346090 Yes, tax wealth not income. Again, not sure there is much discussion to be had here. 99% of the participants in this thread are going to agree that the rich should pay more.
Surely there's at least a few more % jokes? Like "we should raise income taxes on the bottom 20% by 10,000% in exchange for a 2% wealth tax."
If you could get the right people around him, you could probably even get Trump to sign onto that.
EDIT: On May 22 2026 00:23 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2026 00:12 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 22 2026 00:06 Gorsameth wrote:On May 21 2026 23:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:48 Gorsameth wrote:On May 21 2026 23:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:15 misirlou wrote:it's been 10 pages, should the thread get renamed to US mathematics mega thread? + Show Spoiler +- this reminds me of a situation when I was a kid, involving the current secretary-general of the UN, Antonio Guterres. At the time he was portuguese prime minister and got asked how much he had reduced the deficit in numbers.
"Well, the GDP is 3 billion bucks, 6% of that - 6 times 3 is 18, carry the 0s, just need to do the math"
. yes the math was going correct, you can divide by 100 and multiply by 6 (order dont matter) but he was still clowned for that Like I said, catnip to this crowd haha. Any chance we could get this mathfest to breakdown why Jeff Bezos tax proposition isn't as benevolent as he tried to make it sound? Jeff Bezos says bottom half of earners should pay zero in income taxes
The top 1% of taxpayers pay about 40% of all the tax revenue, and the bottom half pay 3%, Bezos told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on “Squawk Box.”
“I don’t think it should be 3%,” Bezos said. “I think it should be zero.”
...
Bezos said the income tax paid by lower earners is “a small amount of money for the government,” and offered the hypothetical example of a healthcare worker who makes $75,000 a year.
“We shouldn’t be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington,” he said. “They should be sending her an apology. It really makes no sense.”
He said he would “advocate” for such a change, but did not offer details on how lawmakers might enact it.
Bezos is the world’s fourth-richest person, with a net worth around $269 billion, according to Forbes https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/20/jeff-bezos-income-taxes.html hard to discuss a tax plan without a plan... Should the rich pay more and the poor pay less? Yes. Any other questions? The CNBC article describes it this way: ‘A tale of two economies’
While the bottom half of earners have a lower tax burden, their struggles have been more pronounced amid higher inflation and broader concerns about affordability.
The so-called K-shaped economy illustrates Americans’ diverging experiences: Higher-income households continue to benefit from rising markets and wages, while many lower- and middle-income consumers struggle with higher costs and financial strain.
Federal Reserve Bank of New York research shows that the expiration of pandemic-era subsidies for low- and middle-income households created a noticeable divergence in 2023. More recently, sharply higher gasoline prices amid the Iran war are exacerbating the K-shape, researchers found. Lower earners spend a greater share of their incomes on gasoline relative to higher earners.
“I think what’s going on is that it’s kind of a tale of two economies, so you have a bunch of people in this country who are doing really well, but you also have a bunch of people in this country who are struggling,” Bezos said.
The notion of whether the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes relative to lower earners has long been a subject of fierce debate.
Critics of raising taxes on higher earners often point to the progressive nature of the federal tax code.
For example, the top 1% of taxpayers accounted for nearly 21% of total adjusted gross income in 2023 — but paid a much larger share, about 38%, of all federal income taxes that year, according to the Tax Foundation, citing IRS data.
Meanwhile, the bottom half of taxpayers accounted for 12% of total income, but just 3% of total income taxes paid.
Placing a higher tax burden on the rich may reduce the amount of money that they save and invest, according to Thomas Savidge, a research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, a free market think tank that promotes limited government.
That saving and investment activity generally “creates access to capital for all, allowing people to create and innovate, making everyone wealthier,” he wrote in 2025.
However, high earners often use the “intricacies of the tax code” to cut their IRS bills, and they pay an effective rate that is “far less” than the rate they must pay on paper, according to a 2024 report by the Yale University Budget Lab.
That said, tax burdens can range widely even among the richest households, it found.
For example, some taxpayers in the top 1% pay an effective tax rate of 3% while others pay as high as 45%, according to the Budget Lab’s analysis.
Some groups in favor of raising taxes on the wealthy say that the U.S. tax system isn’t as progressive as it may seem, when taking a more holistic view of household taxes beyond the personal income tax.
Payroll taxes are the biggest levy that many people pay, and those for Social Security aren’t owed on income above $184,500, according to a recent blog post by Jessica Vela, a federal policy analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a progressive think tank. Million-dollar earners stopped paying into Social Security for 2026 in early March, the Center for Economic and Policy Research estimated.
Low earners also spend a greater share of their income on sales taxes at the state and local level relative to higher earners, contributing to a more regressive tax system, Vela wrote.
When accounting for all federal, state and local taxes paid by U.S. households, the top 1% account for 24% of total tax revenue — only slightly higher than their share of reported income, 20%, according to an ITEP analysis in 2024.
This doesn’t account for so-called unrealized capital gains, or the untaxed profits from stocks and other assets that are disproportionately owned by the wealthy, according to the analysis. The idea was for people to use their expertise in math, taxes, and education to address/explain it with the vigor they did Trump's shitmath for the benefit of everyone, including the impressionable lurkers . In part because he's obviously exploiting people's ignorance to sound benevolent instead of insatiably greedy. It's basically what Trump is doing but without any ambiguity around whether he's oblivious to the actual math. Also it's the kind of thing someone like Fetterman would love as a "compromise". + Show Spoiler +Understandable if people's personal animosity takes precedence though. Yes, the article contains nothing about what his actual plan is or what faulty 'compromise' your alluding to. Repeating the same shit you said in the exact same words when asked the clarify is why no one has discussions with you. So please, go and try again. The "compromise" is taking what ostensibly sounds like a tax cut for half the population to ease their economic burdens instead of meaningfully raising taxes on the wealthy to develop a healthy society and infrastructure that benefits them rather than facilitating the continued extraction of wealth from workers. Was it that much of an imposition to include this reasonable observation in your first post?
I genuinely thought it was as obvious as Trump's percentage thing to most of you. Understandable it's less so for people outside of the US with less familiarity with our systems.
|
Northern Ireland27463 Posts
On May 22 2026 00:25 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2026 00:12 Gorsameth wrote:On May 22 2026 00:05 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:56 Gorsameth wrote:On May 21 2026 23:49 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:45 WombaT wrote:On May 21 2026 23:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:15 misirlou wrote:it's been 10 pages, should the thread get renamed to US mathematics mega thread? + Show Spoiler +- this reminds me of a situation when I was a kid, involving the current secretary-general of the UN, Antonio Guterres. At the time he was portuguese prime minister and got asked how much he had reduced the deficit in numbers.
"Well, the GDP is 3 billion bucks, 6% of that - 6 times 3 is 18, carry the 0s, just need to do the math"
. yes the math was going correct, you can divide by 100 and multiply by 6 (order dont matter) but he was still clowned for that Like I said, catnip to this crowd haha. Any chance we could get this mathfest to breakdown why Jeff Bezos tax proposition isn't as benevolent as he tried to make it sound? Jeff Bezos says bottom half of earners should pay zero in income taxes
The top 1% of taxpayers pay about 40% of all the tax revenue, and the bottom half pay 3%, Bezos told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on “Squawk Box.”
“I don’t think it should be 3%,” Bezos said. “I think it should be zero.”
...
Bezos said the income tax paid by lower earners is “a small amount of money for the government,” and offered the hypothetical example of a healthcare worker who makes $75,000 a year.
“We shouldn’t be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington,” he said. “They should be sending her an apology. It really makes no sense.”
He said he would “advocate” for such a change, but did not offer details on how lawmakers might enact it.
Bezos is the world’s fourth-richest person, with a net worth around $269 billion, according to Forbes https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/20/jeff-bezos-income-taxes.html What is your objection to Bezos’ pontificating? He's obviously exploiting people's ignorance to sound benevolent instead of insatiably greedy. It's basically what Trump is doing but without any ambiguity around whether he's oblivious to the actual math. Also it's the kind of thing someone like Fetterman would love as a "compromise". I love how you add all that context when all he said is 'poor people barely pay taxes, why have them pay any at all'. whats the compromise considering hes musing don't go further then the above. *Sigh* It worked...It's misdirection. I suppose the particular media outlet's presentation helped him a bit with that. Jeff Bezos says raising taxes on the wealthy wouldn’t help the average American
“What’s happening here is politicians are ... picking a villain and pointing fingers,” Amazon’s executive chair said.
“You could double the taxes I pay, and it’s not going to help that teacher in Queens,” Bezos said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” https://www.nbcnews.com/business/corporations/jeff-bezos-taxes-mamdani-billionaires-rcna346090 Yes, tax wealth not income. Again, not sure there is much discussion to be had here. 99% of the participants in this thread are going to agree that the rich should pay more. Surely there's at least a few more % jokes? Like "we should raise income taxes on the bottom 20% by 10,000% in exchange for a 2% wealth tax." If you could get the right people around him, you could probably even get Trump to sign onto that. EDIT: Show nested quote +On May 22 2026 00:23 WombaT wrote:On May 22 2026 00:12 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 22 2026 00:06 Gorsameth wrote:On May 21 2026 23:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:48 Gorsameth wrote:On May 21 2026 23:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:15 misirlou wrote:it's been 10 pages, should the thread get renamed to US mathematics mega thread? + Show Spoiler +- this reminds me of a situation when I was a kid, involving the current secretary-general of the UN, Antonio Guterres. At the time he was portuguese prime minister and got asked how much he had reduced the deficit in numbers.
"Well, the GDP is 3 billion bucks, 6% of that - 6 times 3 is 18, carry the 0s, just need to do the math"
. yes the math was going correct, you can divide by 100 and multiply by 6 (order dont matter) but he was still clowned for that Like I said, catnip to this crowd haha. Any chance we could get this mathfest to breakdown why Jeff Bezos tax proposition isn't as benevolent as he tried to make it sound? Jeff Bezos says bottom half of earners should pay zero in income taxes
The top 1% of taxpayers pay about 40% of all the tax revenue, and the bottom half pay 3%, Bezos told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on “Squawk Box.”
“I don’t think it should be 3%,” Bezos said. “I think it should be zero.”
...
Bezos said the income tax paid by lower earners is “a small amount of money for the government,” and offered the hypothetical example of a healthcare worker who makes $75,000 a year.
“We shouldn’t be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington,” he said. “They should be sending her an apology. It really makes no sense.”
He said he would “advocate” for such a change, but did not offer details on how lawmakers might enact it.
Bezos is the world’s fourth-richest person, with a net worth around $269 billion, according to Forbes https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/20/jeff-bezos-income-taxes.html hard to discuss a tax plan without a plan... Should the rich pay more and the poor pay less? Yes. Any other questions? The CNBC article describes it this way: ‘A tale of two economies’
While the bottom half of earners have a lower tax burden, their struggles have been more pronounced amid higher inflation and broader concerns about affordability.
The so-called K-shaped economy illustrates Americans’ diverging experiences: Higher-income households continue to benefit from rising markets and wages, while many lower- and middle-income consumers struggle with higher costs and financial strain.
Federal Reserve Bank of New York research shows that the expiration of pandemic-era subsidies for low- and middle-income households created a noticeable divergence in 2023. More recently, sharply higher gasoline prices amid the Iran war are exacerbating the K-shape, researchers found. Lower earners spend a greater share of their incomes on gasoline relative to higher earners.
“I think what’s going on is that it’s kind of a tale of two economies, so you have a bunch of people in this country who are doing really well, but you also have a bunch of people in this country who are struggling,” Bezos said.
The notion of whether the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes relative to lower earners has long been a subject of fierce debate.
Critics of raising taxes on higher earners often point to the progressive nature of the federal tax code.
For example, the top 1% of taxpayers accounted for nearly 21% of total adjusted gross income in 2023 — but paid a much larger share, about 38%, of all federal income taxes that year, according to the Tax Foundation, citing IRS data.
Meanwhile, the bottom half of taxpayers accounted for 12% of total income, but just 3% of total income taxes paid.
Placing a higher tax burden on the rich may reduce the amount of money that they save and invest, according to Thomas Savidge, a research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, a free market think tank that promotes limited government.
That saving and investment activity generally “creates access to capital for all, allowing people to create and innovate, making everyone wealthier,” he wrote in 2025.
However, high earners often use the “intricacies of the tax code” to cut their IRS bills, and they pay an effective rate that is “far less” than the rate they must pay on paper, according to a 2024 report by the Yale University Budget Lab.
That said, tax burdens can range widely even among the richest households, it found.
For example, some taxpayers in the top 1% pay an effective tax rate of 3% while others pay as high as 45%, according to the Budget Lab’s analysis.
Some groups in favor of raising taxes on the wealthy say that the U.S. tax system isn’t as progressive as it may seem, when taking a more holistic view of household taxes beyond the personal income tax.
Payroll taxes are the biggest levy that many people pay, and those for Social Security aren’t owed on income above $184,500, according to a recent blog post by Jessica Vela, a federal policy analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a progressive think tank. Million-dollar earners stopped paying into Social Security for 2026 in early March, the Center for Economic and Policy Research estimated.
Low earners also spend a greater share of their income on sales taxes at the state and local level relative to higher earners, contributing to a more regressive tax system, Vela wrote.
When accounting for all federal, state and local taxes paid by U.S. households, the top 1% account for 24% of total tax revenue — only slightly higher than their share of reported income, 20%, according to an ITEP analysis in 2024.
This doesn’t account for so-called unrealized capital gains, or the untaxed profits from stocks and other assets that are disproportionately owned by the wealthy, according to the analysis. The idea was for people to use their expertise in math, taxes, and education to address/explain it with the vigor they did Trump's shitmath for the benefit of everyone, including the impressionable lurkers . In part because he's obviously exploiting people's ignorance to sound benevolent instead of insatiably greedy. It's basically what Trump is doing but without any ambiguity around whether he's oblivious to the actual math. Also it's the kind of thing someone like Fetterman would love as a "compromise". + Show Spoiler +Understandable if people's personal animosity takes precedence though. Yes, the article contains nothing about what his actual plan is or what faulty 'compromise' your alluding to. Repeating the same shit you said in the exact same words when asked the clarify is why no one has discussions with you. So please, go and try again. The "compromise" is taking what ostensibly sounds like a tax cut for half the population to ease their economic burdens instead of meaningfully raising taxes on the wealthy to develop a healthy society and infrastructure that benefits them rather than facilitating the continued extraction of wealth from workers. Was it that much of an imposition to include this reasonable observation in your first post? I genuinely thought it was as obvious as Trump's percentage thing to most of you. Understandable it's less so for people outside of the US with less familiarity with our systems.
Fair enough.
|
On May 22 2026 00:23 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2026 00:12 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 22 2026 00:06 Gorsameth wrote:On May 21 2026 23:57 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:48 Gorsameth wrote:On May 21 2026 23:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:15 misirlou wrote:it's been 10 pages, should the thread get renamed to US mathematics mega thread? + Show Spoiler +- this reminds me of a situation when I was a kid, involving the current secretary-general of the UN, Antonio Guterres. At the time he was portuguese prime minister and got asked how much he had reduced the deficit in numbers.
"Well, the GDP is 3 billion bucks, 6% of that - 6 times 3 is 18, carry the 0s, just need to do the math"
. yes the math was going correct, you can divide by 100 and multiply by 6 (order dont matter) but he was still clowned for that Like I said, catnip to this crowd haha. Any chance we could get this mathfest to breakdown why Jeff Bezos tax proposition isn't as benevolent as he tried to make it sound? Jeff Bezos says bottom half of earners should pay zero in income taxes
The top 1% of taxpayers pay about 40% of all the tax revenue, and the bottom half pay 3%, Bezos told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on “Squawk Box.”
“I don’t think it should be 3%,” Bezos said. “I think it should be zero.”
...
Bezos said the income tax paid by lower earners is “a small amount of money for the government,” and offered the hypothetical example of a healthcare worker who makes $75,000 a year.
“We shouldn’t be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington,” he said. “They should be sending her an apology. It really makes no sense.”
He said he would “advocate” for such a change, but did not offer details on how lawmakers might enact it.
Bezos is the world’s fourth-richest person, with a net worth around $269 billion, according to Forbes https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/20/jeff-bezos-income-taxes.html hard to discuss a tax plan without a plan... Should the rich pay more and the poor pay less? Yes. Any other questions? The CNBC article describes it this way: ‘A tale of two economies’
While the bottom half of earners have a lower tax burden, their struggles have been more pronounced amid higher inflation and broader concerns about affordability.
The so-called K-shaped economy illustrates Americans’ diverging experiences: Higher-income households continue to benefit from rising markets and wages, while many lower- and middle-income consumers struggle with higher costs and financial strain.
Federal Reserve Bank of New York research shows that the expiration of pandemic-era subsidies for low- and middle-income households created a noticeable divergence in 2023. More recently, sharply higher gasoline prices amid the Iran war are exacerbating the K-shape, researchers found. Lower earners spend a greater share of their incomes on gasoline relative to higher earners.
“I think what’s going on is that it’s kind of a tale of two economies, so you have a bunch of people in this country who are doing really well, but you also have a bunch of people in this country who are struggling,” Bezos said.
The notion of whether the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes relative to lower earners has long been a subject of fierce debate.
Critics of raising taxes on higher earners often point to the progressive nature of the federal tax code.
For example, the top 1% of taxpayers accounted for nearly 21% of total adjusted gross income in 2023 — but paid a much larger share, about 38%, of all federal income taxes that year, according to the Tax Foundation, citing IRS data.
Meanwhile, the bottom half of taxpayers accounted for 12% of total income, but just 3% of total income taxes paid.
Placing a higher tax burden on the rich may reduce the amount of money that they save and invest, according to Thomas Savidge, a research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, a free market think tank that promotes limited government.
That saving and investment activity generally “creates access to capital for all, allowing people to create and innovate, making everyone wealthier,” he wrote in 2025.
However, high earners often use the “intricacies of the tax code” to cut their IRS bills, and they pay an effective rate that is “far less” than the rate they must pay on paper, according to a 2024 report by the Yale University Budget Lab.
That said, tax burdens can range widely even among the richest households, it found.
For example, some taxpayers in the top 1% pay an effective tax rate of 3% while others pay as high as 45%, according to the Budget Lab’s analysis.
Some groups in favor of raising taxes on the wealthy say that the U.S. tax system isn’t as progressive as it may seem, when taking a more holistic view of household taxes beyond the personal income tax.
Payroll taxes are the biggest levy that many people pay, and those for Social Security aren’t owed on income above $184,500, according to a recent blog post by Jessica Vela, a federal policy analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a progressive think tank. Million-dollar earners stopped paying into Social Security for 2026 in early March, the Center for Economic and Policy Research estimated.
Low earners also spend a greater share of their income on sales taxes at the state and local level relative to higher earners, contributing to a more regressive tax system, Vela wrote.
When accounting for all federal, state and local taxes paid by U.S. households, the top 1% account for 24% of total tax revenue — only slightly higher than their share of reported income, 20%, according to an ITEP analysis in 2024.
This doesn’t account for so-called unrealized capital gains, or the untaxed profits from stocks and other assets that are disproportionately owned by the wealthy, according to the analysis. The idea was for people to use their expertise in math, taxes, and education to address/explain it with the vigor they did Trump's shitmath for the benefit of everyone, including the impressionable lurkers . In part because he's obviously exploiting people's ignorance to sound benevolent instead of insatiably greedy. It's basically what Trump is doing but without any ambiguity around whether he's oblivious to the actual math. Also it's the kind of thing someone like Fetterman would love as a "compromise". + Show Spoiler +Understandable if people's personal animosity takes precedence though. Yes, the article contains nothing about what his actual plan is or what faulty 'compromise' your alluding to. Repeating the same shit you said in the exact same words when asked the clarify is why no one has discussions with you. So please, go and try again. The "compromise" is taking what ostensibly sounds like a tax cut for half the population to ease their economic burdens instead of meaningfully raising taxes on the wealthy to develop a healthy society and infrastructure that benefits them rather than facilitating the continued extraction of wealth from workers. Was it that much of an imposition to include this reasonable observation in your first post?
GH's catnip is making leading posts and then getting mad at people for not agreeing with the assumptions GH neglected to write out.
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On May 21 2026 23:57 GreenHorizons wrote:
Understandable if people's personal animosity takes precedence [over getting involved in a new discussion topic] though.
There are some days where people have the time and the energy to discuss things in this forum, and there are some days where they don't.
There are some topics where people feel comfortable and interested in engaging, and there are some topics where they don't.
Maybe personal animosity towards the original poster of a new topic is an additional factor for some people, though I think if the time, energy, comfort, and interest is there, those people might still generally contribute to the conversation (even if it's as a reply to someone else's remarks, instead of the original poster's).
I don't personally have anything new to contribute to your proposed topic. Billionaires including Bezos should be paying higher taxes and a lot more money into the system. I'm glad Mamdani has recently called Bezos out, and I like when Sanders and others also call out billionaires. I think more people should do that, and I think more politicians should run on making sure the rich pay their fair share.
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Democrats rip Texas Democratic candidate Maureen Galindo who says she’d make ICE detention center ‘prison for American Zionists’: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5887180-texas-democrats-ice-detention/
Multiple Democrats are criticizing a congressional candidate in Texas for vowing to turn an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center into a “prison for American Zionists.”
...
Galindo has been backed by the Lead Left PAC, which Punchbowl reported has ties to a GOP funding platform, according to its metadata.
Republicans paying Democrats to say insane shit to poison the well. She's going to be the next Tulsi Gabbard, count on it.
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On May 22 2026 00:06 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2026 23:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:15 misirlou wrote:it's been 10 pages, should the thread get renamed to US mathematics mega thread? + Show Spoiler +- this reminds me of a situation when I was a kid, involving the current secretary-general of the UN, Antonio Guterres. At the time he was portuguese prime minister and got asked how much he had reduced the deficit in numbers.
"Well, the GDP is 3 billion bucks, 6% of that - 6 times 3 is 18, carry the 0s, just need to do the math"
. yes the math was going correct, you can divide by 100 and multiply by 6 (order dont matter) but he was still clowned for that Like I said, catnip to this crowd haha. Any chance we could get this mathfest to breakdown why Jeff Bezos tax proposition isn't as benevolent as he tried to make it sound? Jeff Bezos says bottom half of earners should pay zero in income taxes
The top 1% of taxpayers pay about 40% of all the tax revenue, and the bottom half pay 3%, Bezos told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on “Squawk Box.”
“I don’t think it should be 3%,” Bezos said. “I think it should be zero.”
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Bezos said the income tax paid by lower earners is “a small amount of money for the government,” and offered the hypothetical example of a healthcare worker who makes $75,000 a year.
“We shouldn’t be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington,” he said. “They should be sending her an apology. It really makes no sense.”
He said he would “advocate” for such a change, but did not offer details on how lawmakers might enact it.
Bezos is the world’s fourth-richest person, with a net worth around $269 billion, according to Forbes https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/20/jeff-bezos-income-taxes.html No deep maths necessary. Ultrarich people love income tax, because it is not wealth tax. Ultra rich people usually don't have a lot of income. They gain money in other ways, and have ways to make sure that the way they gain money isn't counted as "income" that is taxed. Any type of income tax is neglectable to them. What would really hurt their wallet is a tax based on the stuff they own. Which is why they love talking about details of income tax distribution. Don't neglect the distorting affect that taxing assets would have on everybody besides the rich. A lot of lower middle class and poor that are moving up have their net worth significantly represented by their house and retirement accounts. Small business owners can't easily sell off their ownership percentage to pay owned assets taxes. Or if you found a startup that takes off, the stock becomes very valuable to investors long before you'd be able to pay any tax on that value.
So already you're thinking about crafting exemptions to overcome these hurdles, which will be called tax loopholes for the rich in another ten years. And then there's the constitutionality challenges and the downstream effects of discouraging investment.
Thankfully, I think this is a non-starter. The only thing I think might happen in next ten years is what some states already do: proceeds from holding wealth, capital gains, and millionaire taxes (income-based surtaxes).
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On May 21 2026 13:50 oBlade wrote:Speaking of charges, one of the Feeding Our Future fraud defendants in Minnesota was just charged with $4.6 million in wire fraud after her daycare operation closed shortly after being exposed in a Nick Shirley video.
If you read this story you'll find out that they were already charged for fraud earlier, and this is just another set of charges after the already happening investigation continued.
Nothing of value came from nick Shirleys video, children were kidnapped and others were killed for it.
On legitimate news www.startribune.com The first ICE officer to be charged for the invasion is turning himself in for his crimes. Heres hopeing more are charged as a result.
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On May 22 2026 01:04 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2026 23:57 GreenHorizons wrote:
Understandable if people's personal animosity takes precedence [over getting involved in a new discussion topic] though. There are some days where people have the time and the energy to discuss things in this forum, and there are some days where they don't. There are some topics where people feel comfortable and interested in engaging, and there are some topics where they don't. Maybe personal animosity towards the original poster of a new topic is an additional factor for some people, though I think if the time, energy, comfort, and interest is there, those people might still generally contribute to the conversation (even if it's as a reply to someone else's remarks, instead of the original poster's). I don't personally have anything new to contribute to your proposed topic. Billionaires including Bezos should be paying higher taxes and a lot more money into the system. I'm glad Mamdani has recently called Bezos out, and I like when Sanders and others also call out billionaires. I think more people should do that, and I think more politicians should run on making sure the rich pay their fair share.
Taxes don't solve much as long as the management caters to the donators.
You've taxed a billionaires private equitý more whose money goes to the Republican party who gives his corporation more tax cuts, yay. Corporate autofellatio.
People have no idea how powerful these guys are until they find their families squashed by gigantic cans of tuna.
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On May 22 2026 01:32 dyhb wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2026 00:06 Simberto wrote:On May 21 2026 23:40 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 21 2026 23:15 misirlou wrote:it's been 10 pages, should the thread get renamed to US mathematics mega thread? + Show Spoiler +- this reminds me of a situation when I was a kid, involving the current secretary-general of the UN, Antonio Guterres. At the time he was portuguese prime minister and got asked how much he had reduced the deficit in numbers.
"Well, the GDP is 3 billion bucks, 6% of that - 6 times 3 is 18, carry the 0s, just need to do the math"
. yes the math was going correct, you can divide by 100 and multiply by 6 (order dont matter) but he was still clowned for that Like I said, catnip to this crowd haha. Any chance we could get this mathfest to breakdown why Jeff Bezos tax proposition isn't as benevolent as he tried to make it sound? Jeff Bezos says bottom half of earners should pay zero in income taxes
The top 1% of taxpayers pay about 40% of all the tax revenue, and the bottom half pay 3%, Bezos told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on “Squawk Box.”
“I don’t think it should be 3%,” Bezos said. “I think it should be zero.”
...
Bezos said the income tax paid by lower earners is “a small amount of money for the government,” and offered the hypothetical example of a healthcare worker who makes $75,000 a year.
“We shouldn’t be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington,” he said. “They should be sending her an apology. It really makes no sense.”
He said he would “advocate” for such a change, but did not offer details on how lawmakers might enact it.
Bezos is the world’s fourth-richest person, with a net worth around $269 billion, according to Forbes https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/20/jeff-bezos-income-taxes.html No deep maths necessary. Ultrarich people love income tax, because it is not wealth tax. Ultra rich people usually don't have a lot of income. They gain money in other ways, and have ways to make sure that the way they gain money isn't counted as "income" that is taxed. Any type of income tax is neglectable to them. What would really hurt their wallet is a tax based on the stuff they own. Which is why they love talking about details of income tax distribution. Don't neglect the distorting affect that taxing assets would have on everybody besides the rich. A lot of lower middle class and poor that are moving up have their net worth significantly represented by their house and retirement accounts. Small business owners can't easily sell off their ownership percentage to pay owned assets taxes. Or if you found a startup that takes off, the stock becomes very valuable to investors long before you'd be able to pay any tax on that value. So already you're thinking about crafting exemptions to overcome these hurdles, which will be called tax loopholes for the rich in another ten years. And then there's the constitutionality challenges and the downstream effects of discouraging investment. Thankfully, I think this is a non-starter. The only thing I think might happen in next ten years is what some states already do: proceeds from holding wealth, capital gains, and millionaire taxes (income-based surtaxes).
People who are not super-rich usually have a much higher "income" compared to their wealth. If you do the whole thing revenue-neutral, then you lower their income taxes at the same time you create wealth taxes. I know that i'd much rather pay some tax on the stuff i own compared to the stuff i earn.
You can also easily do something like "first million is free" or whatever, progressive tax brackets are not a new concept after all, to make sure that it really only has an effect on the new aristocracy.
But i agree with you that it is almost certainly not happening. The billionaires have too much power to shape public perception to make sure this never really gets started.
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United States44372 Posts
On May 21 2026 23:58 LightSpectra wrote:
If the tax rates for the working class went from 3% to 0%, it would be a 3000% reduction in taxes paid.
It would be infinite reduction. Come on, you know this, we’ve covered this.
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On May 22 2026 02:29 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On May 21 2026 23:58 LightSpectra wrote:
If the tax rates for the working class went from 3% to 0%, it would be a 3000% reduction in taxes paid. It would be infinite reduction. Come on, you know this, we’ve covered this.
Dunno, i think 3000% sounds more plausible. Infinity is too weird. Can't imagine that, so it doesn't exist, so it is zero. 3000% reduction is a nice number that sounds very sensible here.
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On May 22 2026 02:17 Vivax wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2026 01:04 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On May 21 2026 23:57 GreenHorizons wrote:
Understandable if people's personal animosity takes precedence [over getting involved in a new discussion topic] though. There are some days where people have the time and the energy to discuss things in this forum, and there are some days where they don't. There are some topics where people feel comfortable and interested in engaging, and there are some topics where they don't. Maybe personal animosity towards the original poster of a new topic is an additional factor for some people, though I think if the time, energy, comfort, and interest is there, those people might still generally contribute to the conversation (even if it's as a reply to someone else's remarks, instead of the original poster's). I don't personally have anything new to contribute to your proposed topic. Billionaires including Bezos should be paying higher taxes and a lot more money into the system. I'm glad Mamdani has recently called Bezos out, and I like when Sanders and others also call out billionaires. I think more people should do that, and I think more politicians should run on making sure the rich pay their fair share. Taxes don't solve much as long as the management caters to the donators.You've taxed a billionaires private equitý more whose money goes to the Republican party who gives his corporation more tax cuts, yay. Corporate autofellatio. People have no idea how powerful these guys are until they find their families squashed by gigantic cans of tuna.
You're right. Not only does the money need to be initially collected from the rich, but it then needs to be primarily used for services that'll help the middle and working classes.
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EPT
