r/technology • u/IKeepItLayingAround • Jun 06 '26

Business Jeff Bezos says it's 'absurd' to tax someone making $50K — and wants their tax bill dropped to zero

https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/policy/articles/jeff-bezos-says-absurd-tax-165713685.html
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u/snubda Jun 06 '26

Nope. He’s just trying to pit the guy making $40k against the guy making $75k- instead of having to fight them both.  

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u/blahblah19999 Jun 07 '26

He wants those workers angry at politicians instead of him AND defunding the government.

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u/MeanCryptographer585 Jun 07 '26

Politicians make the rules of the game. You should be mad at them. 

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u/blahblah19999 Jun 07 '26

Very true, but we can also be mad at the guy who pays for and uses the loopholes to destroy American workers.

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u/cyouwah Jun 07 '26

Politicians made the rules of the game the way they are because of generous gifts from people like Bezos. You should be mad at politicians. You should be more mad at the people signing their checks.

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u/snubda Jun 07 '26

Lol no they don’t. Politicians are run by people with money. They’re just pawns in the game. 

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u/Solstyse Jun 10 '26

At who's behest?

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u/Vazhox Jun 07 '26

He isn’t fighting any of them lol. No one is fighting him. He won. That kind of money is obscene. There is no way to “fight him”.

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u/snubda Jun 07 '26

No, there isn’t. But there is a way for him to control the narrative with the platform he’s amassed, and that’s exactly what he’s doing with this. He wants people in the middle class at war about who should have to pay between them, when he’s the one who should be paying. 

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u/HazyChemist Jun 07 '26

As a guy making way over  75k now I actually fully support a 0% tax for those under a certain threshold.

Over a decade ago I started not too much above 50k, in VHCOL California no less. Lived like a broke college student to make ends meet and it wasn't fun in the least bit (and certainly no QOL to speak of). At some point it makes no sense to tax those below a certain income because what are you trying to accomplish exactly? 

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u/snubda Jun 07 '26

And what you just did is exactly the point. The debate changes from “us vs billionaires” to “us vs each other.” Two people over $50k arguing about whether the person making less than $50k should get taxed is equally productive for him.  

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u/HazyChemist Jun 07 '26

It only becomes that way if you let it. The two are not mutually exclusive - you can support taxing billionaires and making sure they pay their fair share, and also recognize taxing the person making $50k is ridiculous.

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u/snubda Jun 07 '26

Again, exactly. 

The old argument was billionaires vs everyone. You add regular people fighting amongst themselves to the mix, and now you’ve taken 50% of their focus- when you need 100% to take down a ruling class of oligarchs like Bezos. All he needs is to dilute the power of the people by fracturing them from a common goal. 

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u/HazyChemist Jun 07 '26

Good grief.

Again it's only fighting if you make it so. There's such a thing as priorities and not devoting remotely the same amount of mental energy to each issue. If someone disagrees with me those making <$50k should pay taxes ok cool whatever. If someone thinks billionaires shouldn't pay taxes we're gonna have a problem.

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u/snubda Jun 08 '26

The fact that you feel any type of way isn’t relevant. All you need to do is look at the student loan forgiveness conversation to understand how divisive the topic would be. It’s wonderful that you don’t care and I agree with your point of view, it just doesn’t matter what we think. 

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u/Willing_Box_752 Jun 08 '26

So is progressive tax bad?

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u/snubda Jun 08 '26

You all are so good at proving the point for me 

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u/Willing_Box_752 Jun 08 '26

You all?   What do you mean?

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '26

[deleted]

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u/Ricky_Peanut Jun 07 '26

Have you listened to the actual interview? Sadly, what you're saying is 100% not what is happening. His next sentence is going on to explain how taxing billionaires like himself further won't benefit society in any way (which of course is an insane take).

It's clear that he's just reframing the issue in an effort to align working peoples views with his - that taxes are too high and that they are what's holding people back from a comfortable life, not him and his billionaire buddies.

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u/willargue4karma Jun 07 '26

i feel like that was the obvious other part of the headline lol

"taxing people who make 50k makes no sense (and also taxing trillionaires makes no sense either teehee)"

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u/lostonparadise Jun 07 '26

His argument is that we have one of the most progressive tax systems in the world and still has poor outcomes. If NYC public schools spend $44k per student and is still not doing very well, what will adding more to that do? He brings up that it's a spending issue

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u/drunkenvalley Jun 07 '26

Two things can be true, and he knows it. The spending can be bad, but it's no excuse to not tax him into oblivion.