Why Jeff Bezos’ Tax Rate Is Lower Than Yours
4/17/20261 hr 6 min
Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg and Warren Buffett are three of the richest people in the world, but they pay little in income tax relative to their wealth.
In 2021, ProPublica published an investigation built on leaked tax documents that reveal what some of the richest Americans really pay — or don’t. Warren Buffett had a true tax rate of 0.1 percent. Jeff Bezos: 0.98 percent. Michael Bloomberg: 1.3 percent.
Ultra-wealthy Americans have essentially been written out of the tax system. “It’s wrong as a matter of principle. It’s wrong because we need their money. It’s wrong as a matter of fairness. It is wrong for so many reasons,” the law professor Ray Madoff told me.
She’s the author of the new book “The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy,” and she’s interested in helping people understand how broken the American tax system is and how to fix it.
In this conversation, we discuss the techniques the ultra-wealthy use to evade the tax system, why they think “salaries are for suckers” and what tax reform could look like.
Mentioned:
“The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax” by Jesse Eisinger, Jeff Ernsthausen and Paul Kiel
The Second Estate by Ray D. Madoff
Taxation: The People’s Business by Andrew W. Mellon
Philanthrocapitalism by Matthew Bishop and Michael Green
Book Recommendations:
The Age of Extraction by Tim Wu
The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order by Gary Gerstle
Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our recording engineer is Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Jack McCordick, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Lauren Reddy. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. And special thanks to Edward Fox.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Clips
Showing 10 of 12Transcript preview
First 90 secondsDane Brugler0:00
I'm Dane Brugler. I cover the NFL Draft for The Athletic. Our draft guide picked up the name The Beast because of the crazy amount of information that's included. I'm looking at thousands of players, putting together hundreds of scouting reports. I've been covering this year's draft since last year's draft. There is a lot in The Beast that you simply can't find anywhere else. This is the kind of in-depth, unique journalism you get from The Athletic and The New York Times. You can subscribe at nytimes.com/subscribe.
Ezra Klein· Host0:29
[upbeat music] April fifteenth was, as you may know, tax day here in the US. If you're a normal American, you make money through wages, probably not your favorite day of the year. If you make a median income or above, you're handing a lot of that money back to the government. But that is the price we pay for living in a society, right? Well, not for everyone. You may remember this. In twenty twenty-one, ProPublica published an investigation built on a