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".

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.

So this is more about shaming the witch rather than showing the witch did witchery.

the Watergate leaks?

Snowden's leaks?

the Pentagon Papers?

and a lot of less famous leaks of restricted information that have led to exposure and sometimes even justice for people who otherwise would have hid behind "legal" defenses for immoral or flat out illegal acts of their own?

I served in the Navy - I had a prety high clearance just to do the job I did. I know the value of classifying or otherwise restricting information. And I know the value of breaking those rules to expose those who would hide their crimes.

I consider the current tax code a recipe/playbook/script for stealing from the American public.

It’s simple some vigilante having a vendetta against someone they don’t like and using illegal mans to skewer them.

The case they have is known. We know the loopholes. Let's as close them. Don’t go out on personal or vendettas of virtue when it aids nothing. There is nothing new here. Jeff, as much as I dislike his company, didn’t commit a crime.

If the leak's target did nothing illegal or unethical with their taxes, then how are they being skewered? Their taxes would just show them to be an upstanding, law-abiding citizen, right?

So sure, you can claim all you like that we already knew about these holes, but abstract arguments and aggregate data are far less persuasive and motivating than specific examples that clearly show the stark reality.

Or are you forgetting how the George Floyd video galvanized a world-wide movement despite everyone already "knowing" that racism is bad, that it exists, that police training is subpar and that bad cops kill people of colour?

As if Twitter and all other social media media weren't about taking things and reframing them to make targets into bad people.

Like it or not, they created it.

Should we extract more taxes from them, yes, arguably. But we don't have to resort to blackmail or other underworld tactics since it really accomplishes nothing other than momentary outrage by the mob.

Get congress to enact laws that close loopholes.

Either by inheriting it or some business arrangement where you keep value created by other people. Bill Gates for example didn’t code Windows 7 himself. JK Rawlings didn’t print millions of Harry Potter books or even produce the movies etc. Sorts superstars don’t build stadiums or collect ticket sales etc.

This is most obvious with investments dividends. As such thinking of capital gains as the fruit of their effort is really kind of a silly idea.

And we do that by exposing the problems of the existing system and galvanizing people to demand change. Which is what these articles are doing.

I myself would like Jeff to pay more in taxes. I think the super wealthy pay too little in terms of parentage, but I should be upset with the Congress/IRS not the wealthy.

Really, it’s not a question of laws but one of obligations to society as a whole. Because society and the government are different entities but society depends on it’s government.

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.

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.

The problem with that argument is who get to make that decision? Would you still be saying that if someone leaked you tax records to the general public?

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)

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.

Google's only presence in Bermuda was a P.O. box.

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.

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

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).

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.

If you earn $100 a week and tax withholding let you have $80 to yourself. That $20 didn’t belong to the government. It belonged to you. You however, having entered into an implicit agreement with society agree you will part with your money and give it to the government (which is different from its being theirs). Now, if you donated some of the $100 to charity or whatever and reduce your tax liability, that’s not “theft”. That’s part of the initial implicit agreement.

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.

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.

Yes, it is, overall: https://theintercept.com/2019/04/13/tax-day-taxes-statistics...

> Once you factor in the regressive nature of social security taxes

Social security is effectively a mandatory pension scheme where you get benefits at retirement based on what you paid in, so calling it a regressive tax seems inaccurate.

> and average sales taxes

Many states have exemptions for essential goods to limit the regressive nature of sales taxes, but yes they are regressive overall.

> you quickly see that the rate of taxes paid on all income remains fairly consistent

I'm not sure what your definition of fairly consistent is, but your first sentence is incorrect above, so it's probably not accurate here either.

> up until you get to people with a net worth in tens of millions plus who pay a much lower percent rate.

This is absolutely true, and is something that should be addressed in my opinion. Just taxing capital gains as income would be a great start, and might be enough.

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.

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?

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.

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.

There are guys in Hyderabad right now in conditions worse than US homelessness learning Python, devops, cloud, virtualization, you name it because that's how they can survive.

I know people in fairly poor countries with terrible crime rates and bad job prospects, and I have never heard them complain about how hard life is. They figure out how to get out of their situation and improve their life.

The idea that someone else has to fix your situation because life is hard has to be one of the most crippling mentalities you could have. The sheer amount of opportunity we have in the west is unprecedented in human history; instead of crying about the fact that your stable job of 20 years is ending, yes: I'm going to say that it is fundamentally you that has to pivot (even if it would be nice if the government helped).

This story is about how the very few extremely high earners use sophisticated personal finance strategies to minimize their tax burden. On the other hand huge numbers of people use the unsophisticated strategy of not developing any significant skills or education and not earning much money resulting in not paying any net taxes. Not talking about the super poor who earn nothing, but people who earn $30,000-$60,000/year. At the end of the day, they are not net tax payers.

My entire thesis is that vigilante leaks like this are a product of the perceived unwillingness of the legislature to deal with the abuse of tax loopholes or to tax the rich at anywhere close to the rate that the overwhelming majority of voters want. If my theory is correct, then saying “talk to your legislator instead” is almost hilariously tone deaf, given that these leakers are probably taking actions into their own hands in response to a belief that their legislator is lazy or corrupt.

More broadly, my point is that singling out individual actors is an ineffective way to stop stochastic law breaking. Decry and punish individual law breakers all you want, but don’t expect it to stop until you at least triage the underlying causes.

The bureaucrats are functionally accountable to nobody. This leak was instigated by a bureaucrat.

Fuck the bureaucrats.

That’s the theory, yes. I do not believe this to be true in practice however.

Bothered by "internet mobs?" Look at the underlying issues.