 ProPublica has obtained lots and lots of documents from the IRS and they conducted an analysis and basically the conclusion of this analysis is that We need a wealth tax yesterday And of course, I'm paraphrasing a little bit But when you read the details here and you look at some of the information that they provide us with It is absolutely clear that there's no way we're going to solve the issue of income and wealth inequality unless we take drastic action and introduce legislation Like a wealth tax so they explain ProPublica has obtained a vast trove of internal revenue service data on the tax returns of thousands of the Nations wealthiest people covering more than 15 years the data provides an unprecedented look inside the financial lives of America's Titans Including Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg It shows not just their income and taxes But also their investments stock trades gambling winnings and even the results of audits taken together It demolishes the cornerstone myth of the American tax system that everyone pays their fair share and the richest Americans pay the most The IRS records show that the wealthiest can perfectly legally pay income taxes that are only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions If not billions their fortunes grow each year to capture the financial reality of the richest Americans ProPublica undertook an analysis that has never been done before we compared how much in taxes the 25 richest Americans paid each year To how much Forbes estimated their wealth grew in that same time period We're going to call this their true tax rate the results are stark according to Forbes those 25 people saw their worth rise a collective 401 billion dollars from 2014 to 2018 they paid a total of 13.6 billion in federal income taxes in those five years The IRS data shows that's a staggering sum, but it amounts to a true tax rate of only 3.4 percent now let's look at the four richest Americans and What they claimed their income was what they paid in taxes But most importantly how much their wealth grew in this four-year period Warren Buffett, for example reported $125 million in income and he paid 23.7 million in federal taxes over that same four-year period So it sounds reasonable at first, right? However, when you look at how much his wealth grew by 24.3 billion dollars in four years making what they call his true tax rate 0.1% Yeah, Jeff Bezos reported 4.22 billion in income and paid 973 million in taxes, but his wealth grew by 99 billion dollars making his true tax rate 0.98% Michael Bloomberg reported 10 billion. He paid 292 million in taxes, but his wealth grew by 22.5 billion making his true tax rate 1.3% and finally Elon Musk reported 1.5 billion paid 455 million in taxes but saw his wealth grow by nearly 14 billion dollars making his true tax rate 3.27% so in effect This is why the gap between normal Americans and the richest Americans continues to grow Now I want to show you an image that really I think perfectly demonstrates how unfair this system is While Bezos wealth has grown astronomically over the last decade and he's paid a minuscule fraction of it in taxes a Typical American household paid more in taxes than it accumulated in wealth So they might argue that we're paying our fair share. I paid millions of dollars in taxes and That's technically true. I mean if you look at their tax rate in comparison with their income for a particular year Sure, maybe they pay like 14 to 18 percent as is the case with that chart. We just saw however when you look at their wealth and How fast their wealth is growing the rate at which they're able to accumulate wealth seemingly exponential I mean, that's when you get the full story But still like this is a lot of numbers and I think that the article did its best job by providing us with this Visualizer that tries to put everything into perspective and let you see point blank Just how egregious this is wealth and income work very differently for the ultra wealthy than they do for most people This represents $100 of income for a typical wage-earning American household The federal government taxes income a typical American household might pay something like 14 percent For many households the rest of their income goes toward expenses every year with maybe a small amount left over for savings A typical household might also own a home which often grows in value over time Such asset gains make up much of that household's wealth growth for any given year This proportion of wealth growth versus taxes has been typical from middle-aged Americans since the mid-2000s However, it's inverted for the ultra wealthy. This represents $100 of income for Bezos from 2006 to 2018 His taxes were about 21 percent of its income But for people in this stratosphere income doesn't really matter Bezos Amazon shares have skyrocketed in value since 2006 in most years his wealth grew far more than what he reported an income to the IRS Between 2006 and 2018 Bezos wealth shot up by over 120 billion Dollars while he paid a minuscule proportion in taxes meanwhile typical Americans his age paid more in taxes than they saw it in wealth growth Over that period that is for every $100 of wealth growth over that period typical Americans paid $160 in taxes Bezos paid only a dollar and nine cents obviously the solution is We need to tax the fuck out of the rich Confiscate that wealth that they stole from their workers We need a wealth tax and it might not necessarily be politically feasible at this time in the current shape of American politics But understand that the issue of income and wealth inequality isn't actually going to get better unless we take drastic action and anyone who purports to be against the widening gap between the rich and the poor if they're not proposing something like a wealth tax Or confiscatory measures literally then they're not serious about alleviating this problem