The Daily Populous Wednesday July 21st, 2021 day edition
Authored by businessinsider.com and submitted by stem12345679

Sen. Elizabeth Warren criticized Jeff Bezos for not paying taxes after he landed back on earth.

Warren has criticized Bezos' tax rate before, including after a bombshell ProPublica report revealed how little the wealthiest pay.

Warren is also a longtime advocate for a wealth tax on those holding over $50 million.

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren took a jab at Jeff Bezos after the world's richest man returned to Earth from his suborbital space trip with Blue Origin.

Bezos addressed a crowd on Tuesday while donning a cowboy hat, saying he wanted to "thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all of this."

"Jeff Bezos forgot to thank all the hardworking Americans who actually paid taxes to keep this country running while he and Amazon paid nothing." Warren tweeted, shortly after Rep. Ocasio-Cortez had criticized Bezos.

It's not the first time Warren has taken aim at Bezos and his taxes. As Insider's Avery Hartmans previously reported, Warren told TMZ that Bezos was "laughing at every person in America who actually paid taxes. Jeff Bezos's trip to outer space is being financed by all the rest of the US taxpayers who paid their taxes so that Jeff Bezos didn't have to."

Her remarks came after a bombshell ProPublica report revealed just how little the wealthiest Americans pay in taxes. That report said that Bezos did not pay income taxes for two years; in fact, in 2011 he reportedly received a $4,000 tax credit that's meant for families earning under $100,000. Insider's Lynnley Browning also previously reported that Amazon paid no income taxes in 2017 and 2018.

While the methods that America's wealthiest use to pay relatively little in taxes are legal, they've prompted discussions from legislators around the need for tax reform.

Warren is a longtime advocate for a wealth tax. Her proposal, the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, targets households with a net worth of $50 million or more. Households with $50 million to $1 billion would see a 2% tax; those with over $1 billion would see a 3% tax.

An analysis from Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies Project on Inequality found that, under Warren's tax, Bezos would have paid $5.7 billion in taxes in 2020.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

stinky_wizzleteet on July 20th, 2021 at 21:25 UTC »

You know what really gets me? How is it that a small handful of people can have so much money that their pet projects are getting into space. Think about that for a second.

When I think about that I'm slapped in the face that "getting" to space, moon, etc. used to be the stuff of nations. A few humans have so much money that their pet projects are getting to space. This used to take a whole nations wealth to achieve. In fact, most nations cant possibly imagine funding such a project and only a few have.

This, if anything else, should show you how completely pants on head crazy it is that one person can have so much money/power. Its on par with the Cesars, Khans and as recently as the Rockefellers and Carnagies. Its unsustainable.

AnotherTalkingHead_ on July 20th, 2021 at 21:20 UTC »

"This flight never would have been possible without the thousands of you that I made piss in empty bottles. Congratulations to me on reaching the stars, the rest of you just focus on your productivity ratios."

JPK8675309 on July 20th, 2021 at 21:02 UTC »

You’d think with all that money, he could hire a decent PR person to not make him look like a total asshole all the time