{"id":48402,"date":"2026-05-23T12:33:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T19:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=48402"},"modified":"2026-05-23T12:33:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T19:33:22","slug":"keep-digging-progressives-welcome-jeff-bezos-entrance-into-tax-the-billionaires-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/05\/23\/keep-digging-progressives-welcome-jeff-bezos-entrance-into-tax-the-billionaires-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Keep Digging\u2019: Progressives Welcome Jeff Bezos\u2019 Entrance Into Tax-the-Billionaires Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Jeff<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos speaks onstage ahead of US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at Blue Origin in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on February 2, 2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Photo by Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe political danger in Bezos\u2019 argument\u201d to eliminate income taxes for the bottom 50% of American earners, said one op-ed, \u201cis that it lets billionaires sound generous while leaving the structure of wealth largely untouched.\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Julia Conley<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

May 22, 2026 (CommonDreams.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos<\/a>\u2019 decision to wade into the tax the rich<\/a> debate raised eyebrows Thursday, as progressives<\/a> who have long demanded a wealth tax for billionaires said they\u2019d be happy to include him in the ongoing discussion about how the US tax system can be reformed to benefit working people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an interview with CNBC this week, the world\u2019s fourth-richest person claimed<\/a> that doubling his taxes would do nothing to help working people, and attempted to shift the conversation on the tax system to a proposal that the bottom 50% of earners in the US should pay nothing in income taxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RECOMMENDED…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A Four-Word Response for Those Upset With Jeff Bezos for Any Number of Reasons: \u2018Tax the Damn Rich\u2019<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"America<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Are Readers Meant to Take This Seriously?\u2019: Economist Refutes Latest Attack on Wealth Tax by Bezos\u2019 Washington Post<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou could double the taxes I pay, and it\u2019s not going to help that teacher in Queens,\u201d said Bezos. \u201cI promise you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New York City<\/a> Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a> replied<\/a>, \u201cI know a few teachers in Queens who would beg to differ.\u201d The democratic socialist has been relentlessly focused on making the city more affordable for working people and last month announced<\/a> his plan to tax second homes valued at more than $5 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critics of Bezos were quick to point out this week that the 1% effective tax rate the billionaire paid between 2014-18 was due to his avoidance of the income tax that working Americans have to pay, with the executive \u201coffsetting<\/a> earned income with other investment losses and various deductions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Progressive leaders like Sen. Elizabeth Warren<\/a> (D-Mass.) have argued<\/a> that billionaires including Bezos pay a lower effective tax rate than working people because a vast amount of their wealth comes from unrealized capital gains and other investments instead of income from labor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bezos has also not faced a tax on his immense overall wealth of $275.4 billion, which US Sen. Bernie Sanders<\/a> (I-Vt.) and other progressives have long called for, saying that taxing a relatively tiny amount of the assets held by billionaires like Bezos, Tesla<\/a> founder and President Donald Trump<\/a> megadonor Elon Musk<\/a>, and other tech and business executives could fund essential services for the rest of society\u2014including many that have contributed to the affordability crisis for working families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet\u2019s have that debate\u201d regarding reforms to the US tax system, Sanders said Thursday evening, addressing Bezos on Musk\u2019s platform X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The senator has\u00a0proposed<\/a>\u00a0a 5% annual wealth tax, which he said would leave Bezos still sitting on $269 billion in total wealth, while providing enough revenue to fund guaranteed universal childcare, an expansion of\u00a0Medicare<\/a>\u00a0to cover dental, vision, and hearing care for senior citizens, a nationwide starting salary of $60,000 per year for public school teachers, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

X post: https:\/\/x.com\/BernieSanders\/status\/2057582603343970473?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2057582603343970473%7Ctwgr%5E65b3933eaa9547e8c59cc1d13dda667c1e5fac10%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fhow-much-does-jeff-bezos-pay-in-taxes<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his interview with CNBC and on social media<\/a> this week, Bezos repeatedly attempted<\/a> to shift attention away from his taxes and onto the income taxes paid by the bottom 50% of earners, claiming<\/a> that the \u201ctop 1% pay 40% of taxes, the bottom 50% pay 3% of taxes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe United States<\/a> has the most progressive tax system in the world,\u201d he asserted. \u201cWe can make it even more progressive by zeroing out taxes on the bottom half. It\u2019s a small amount of the total tax revenue but very meaningful to people in this group.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paris School of Economics professor Gabriel Zucman, who has also called for a wealth tax and last month co-authored<\/a> a Guardian op-ed with Mamdani explaining how the regressive tax system of the US has helped ensure the top 0.0001% of the global population holds the equivalent of 16% of the world\u2019s wealth, said Bezos was misrepresenting the conclusions of global economists regarding the US system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYour claim that the top 1% pays 40% of taxes and the bottom 50% only 3% is misleading: It captures just one tax\u2014the federal income tax\u2014and ignores all the rest: payroll taxes, state income taxes, sales taxes, excise duties, etc., many of which are regressive,\u201d said Zucman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bezos continued debating the issue on social media on Wednesday, sharing an article that explained how numerous analyses have determined he has paid an effective tax rate hovering around 1%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGreat to see Bezos keeps bringing up his own massive tax avoidance. Keep digging! This travesty needs a real public debate,\u201d said historian Rutger Bregman, sharing a graph from Zucman\u2019s research, which shows how the average tax rate of the richest Americans has plummeted in recent decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

X post: https:\/\/x.com\/rcbregman\/status\/2057732360020345244?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2057732360020345244%7Ctwgr%5E65b3933eaa9547e8c59cc1d13dda667c1e5fac10%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fhow-much-does-jeff-bezos-pay-in-taxes<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Newsweek on Wednesday, the magazine\u2019s editors wrote<\/a> that Bezos was correct in his CNBC interview that \u201cone billionaire\u2019s larger tax bill will not fund a modern state by itself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe deeper issue is whether the tax system asks comparable civic seriousness from wages, capital gains, inheritances, consumption, and payroll,\u201d wrote the editors. \u201cA nurse\u2019s paycheck is easy to tax because it is visible. A billionaire\u2019s wealth can grow through assets that may remain untaxed until sale, or perhaps sheltered safely in some offshore domain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe political danger in Bezos\u2019 argument\u201d to allow the bottom 50% of American earners to pay nothing in income tax, the editors added, \u201cis that it lets billionaires sound generous while leaving the structure of wealth largely untouched.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thom Hartmann<\/a> of The Hartmann Report said<\/a> Bezos\u2019 push to eliminate income taxes for a huge swath of Americans benefits him and other billionaires in three ways, while ultimately harming those he claims to be trying to help save money:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

<\/strong>First, it gets millions of Americans on the \u201cwe shouldn\u2019t ever pay any income taxes at all\u201d train that\u2019s been rolling for billionaires ever since [former President Ronald] Reagan first gutted our tax code, leading to an explosion of the morbidly rich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, it gets those same average, tax-paying voters on board with Bezos\u2019 second claim, that America\u2019s debt problem isn\u2019t because we\u2019re taxing too little but because we\u2019re \u201cspending too much.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we just got rid of\u2014or privatized\/profitized\u2014all those pesky \u201csocialist\u201d programs like Medicaid<\/a>, food stamps, free public highways, fire and police departments, Social Security<\/a>, food and drug regulation and inspection, air traffic control and TSA, housing subsidies, Pell grants, free public schools<\/a>, etc., then even billionaires could safely live tax-free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third, it means that Bezos will be able to reduce his own labor costs, because the marketplace in which pay rates exist are always exclusively reacting to \u201cafter tax\u201d dollars.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Hartmann highlighted Bezos\u2019 resistance to a wealth tax and a fair tax rate with an anecdote about \u201ca very wealthy German businessman\u201d he once saw interviewed by an American reporter on Bloomberg News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The businessman asked the reporter \u201chow he could possibly live in a country\u201d that taxes \u201cvery wealthy and successful people\u201d at about 60%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cWhy don\u2019t you lead a revolt against those high taxes?\u201d he asked, his tone implying the businessman was badly in need of some good old American rebellion-making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The German businessman paused for a long moment and then leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees, his clasped hands in front of him pointing at the reporter as if in prayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He stared at the man for another long moment and then, in the tone of voice an adult uses to correct a spoiled child, said simply, \u201cI don\u2019t want to be a rich man in a poor country.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, Hartmann wrote, \u201cthe billionaires and foreign oligarchs who fund the\u00a0Republican Party<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0right-wing<\/a>\u00a0media think it\u2019s perfectly fine to rip the financial and political guts out of their own nation and turn its people against each other if it lets them keep a few extra bucks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Julia Conley<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Julia Conley is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Bio ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos speaks onstage ahead of US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at Blue Origin in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on February 2, 2026.  (Photo by Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo\/AFP via Getty Images) \u201cThe political danger in Bezos\u2019 argument\u201d to eliminate income taxes for the bottom 50% of American… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1916],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48402"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48402"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48403,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48402\/revisions\/48403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}