thatguyinportland
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Apr 14, 2026 10:23 PM
thatguyinportland
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LitterBoxKing
Fuck you, Jeff Bezos.
WellEverybodysHeardAboutTheBird
75dmcnamara10
So says an absolutely neutral editorial board of an absolutely neutral newspaper owned by an absolutely neutral billionaire
OhIfIMust
No they fucking don't; my tax rate is at least 3x higher than what the big corps and super-rich are paying, and it has a MASSIVELY higher impact on my life.
OriginalAndWitty
They seriously need to consider the alternative to being taxed is guillotines. https://media2.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1eWNvcnI5NHdvcnBudHBnczJ6OXh5dHV6aXltazVtOGx4bmVseDdpdSZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/XBoYoCVQNBpJe/200w.webp
secondbest
Bezos says what?
MoralRectifier
*Bozo
notifybay151
https://media4.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1cGZibXBjODNhZmJ1dWFsNjVkZWY0YWJtdGR6bHU0bzJ1YjN0cno2ZiZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/wEYrzsUdbmrufA0YMI/200w.webp
duktayp
Next they're going to start asking for reimbursement of the last 70 years, when they paid an equal percentage as middle class people
sleepinggreenidea
Given how tone-deaf this is, they won't ask for reimbursement, they'll ask for reparations.
yuugian
Asking?
tonehoundsmoser9
Written be Jeff Bezos, I mean, Zeb Joseff.
chackstar
Written by Jeff’s Bozos
TheOvy
This is beyond implied now. A year and a half ago, Bezos pushed out many members of the Editorial Board, and then gave strict requirements on what principles op-eds must espouse -- namely, his own. The op-ed section is traditionally a place where a diverse array of viewpoints can be argued, now it's just Bezos' megaphone.
OnyxTurret
Written by AI with prompts from Joseff.
joepineapplesindrag
Septcanmat
I like the way Snrub thinks!
theduckening
"I pay my fair share, I put my money in offshore accounts and my business paid 0$ and I left the rest to be covered by you. It's fair" - Super rich
MipMop
Mountons
Fair? The rich decided what's fair and still try to pay less.
newsguycraigevans
https://media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPWE1NzM3M2U1NGdoNGl3ZG53bDZiazc0eGFzYnp1NG1uanRkbGJ0NzVtMWNhbnJrZyZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/ybG5Au3UhHv4k/200w.webp
DiracsDelta
Saturniidae
TinyBadger101
No, no they don't. They pay more than poor people, because they have more, but they pay proportionally less than everyone who isn't stupid rich. Their "fair share" is their actual share of the wealth of this country, and they pay WAY less than that. I pay over 25% of my income in taxes, they pay like 5% at most. I'm doing quite well (top 5% of American incomes), and I'm not complaining that I pay too much, but bedamned if I'll let them claim the rich pay anything close to their share.
rk57957
It was decades ago but that bloviating jackass Rush Limbaugh had made the statement that the top 10% pay a very large percentage of income taxes. And me thinking that he was a bloviating jackass went bullshit. He was wrong, but only because he had underestimated, they paid more.
But percentages are one of those things that are really easy to lie with so I looked up the IRS data.
The top 10% did pay a majority of the taxes but their tax rate was much lower than everyone else's.
dirtmarker
Warren Buffet famously pays a lower percentage tax rate than his secretary.
BlackHoleSon01
It's more progressive than a sales tax, which some repubs want to replace it with. But it's nowhere near as progressive as it was when, say, Reagan took office. It has gotten less progressive almost every year since
newsguycraigevans
Bossco20
Way to suck corporate cock Washington Post
DukeDarkwood
And the room in question is the United States of America. (He's trying it on the world, but, fortunately, they are not falling for it.)
TheWombatStrikesAgain
Right, that's why they have the money to take up space travel as a hobby, while common people have to work three jobs to make ends meet.
salunatics
Without a link, I'm inclined to think this is rage bait.
NonMAGA
Without so much as a search, I'm inclined to think you have an agenda.
NonMAGA
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/04/14/income-tax-progressive-code-irs-middle-class/
Them3OtherGuys
It's real, but I'm pretty sure it's still rage bait. That's what generates clicks these days. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/04/14/income-tax-progressive-code-irs-middle-class/
thatguyinportland
yeah. that's why I opted to not post the link. I didn't want to give them the clicks.
wdr1977
So, if anyone making less than a living wage, say $200k, are paying ANY taxes at all, they are paying too much and the rich--who are necessarily stealing their wages--are paying too little
pipatron
Hm, how crazy out of touch are you that you think $200k is the lower bracket for a living wage?
nicelyvillainous
Depends on your definition of living wage. I think that in some metrics it is not crazy for a household income. For eg, for childcare to be an “affordable” fraction of income in basically the whole US, you need a household income of like $240k.
alwaysinarut
Big US cities are crazy expensive.
GratuaCuun
Corporate overlords must be nervous with how many people have been taking shots at them and burning shit - trying to get the media to (pathetically) properly them up
TheVillageGrouch9000
There are not enough people willing to throw away their lives make an impact.
TheVillageGrouch9000
There are not enough people willing to throw away their lives to make a difference.
beelzebob23
Some have even gone so far as to murder those bastards and are being treated like heroes.
Johnsky
Zero... Zero is more than their fair share?
Syovere
If you ask them, we should be paying them for the privilege of having the rich as part of our society.
if you ask me, on the other hand, well... are you familiar with HTML error code 451?
lightfoot2
Ah yes the Washington Times.... *yawn*
Arbitrarynamehere
WaPo
trigonman3
Just say you can't read blackletter fonts.
SpartaWolf117
see, you can tell this was written straight from their rich overlords, because that is complete horseshit
pashabigdog
I bet this is written my Bezos himself
wadatahmydamie
Bezos, the guy whose employee told workers to ignore the dead body of their friend because it would disrupt workflow
hufflesnuff
Won't somebody please think of Jeff's backyard space program? What if his trophy wife gets board of the yacht and wants to take Katy Perry on a moon trip after their next Botox sesh?
HulaJesus
Right? Hes only a billionaire theres like double digits of them. He needs to be a trillionaire so the world knows he really is the most special boy and not like the other peasants.
hotaru251
if the rich make 90% of the income they can pay 90% of the taxes right?
HydraNine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6h9Wsnlc5E
cousteau
They "can pay" MUCH more than that. But at the very least they should pay proportionally.
mrthewhitee
Was this article written by Beff Jesos?
tavinjer
Nooooooo, it’s by the Editorial Board, and that’s toooootally different do not even worry about it
dirtmarker
WwwhyYouNoLikeMe
What about "Eat the rich" phrase? Is that to provide positive nutrition outcomes for the population?
PuppyBella
Brilliant interview. Who is the interviewee?
420supercoolusername69
Who are these guys? Internet personalities or actual subject matter experts?
DoctorPitt
the fuck they do
dirtmarker
You sir have a mastery of the English language.
heffSTL
My words exactly
ImJustSoFckingSickOfThisBllsht
Right? Also, there is little that pisses me off more than gaslighting.
ireplywithtwinpeaks
Depends on the gas
jesuisgur
In France it was officially revealed recently that no billionaire pays more than 0.5% in taxes and that there are 13000 millionaires who don't pay *ANY* taxes at all thanks to various loopholes. Chop. Chop. Chop.
YouRadicalizedMe
10spen
I have this sticker on my laptop. I make sure that management sees it in meetings.
Yes, I work in IT.
JasonWaterfaIIs
Mmm risotto
CarlBassett
The top 10% of earners paid 68% of all federal income tax. The top 1% paid 35% of all income tax. The bottom 50% of earners paid 3% of income tax.
brennanmalik
How the fuck are the latest statistics from 2011 and why are you suggesting this is even remotely relevant in today’s discussion
MeestowKitty
And what proportion of their income do they pay comparatively?
Tarmaccian
And that’s okay.
In fact, it could even be better!
That bottom 50% is only making $55000 per year, which isn’t really a livable wage in most of the United States… so why the fuck are they paying anything, let alone 3% of the whole country’s income, when they don’t even have their own stability settled?
geekstudios
Hey how about you include social security and Medicare/medicaid in that? What do you suppose that does to these figures? Cherry picking which taxes to look at doesn’t help get an overall picture.
CarlBassett
The headline is about income tax. Those taxes they pay fund medicare/medicaid, but I doubt many billionaires use them. Ditto social security. They fund it but don't use it.
killergrooves85
You are aware that the vast majority of the Top 1%’s wealth isn’t income, right? It’s a well known tax loophole. You take out loans against your assets which is not taxed and keep kicking the can down the road until you die. Banks let you do this if you’re obscenely wealthy because you keep a lot of that wealth in assets the banks manage and they make a fuckton also because banks use the money you keep there as money they can invest for themselves. It’s why savings accounts earn interest.
INeedMoreGifMeMoreJustOneMore
So, this is 'true', but it obfuscates and misconstrues how and where the 1% and the 0.01% get their net worth from, and how they barely pay any tax in perspective. Hence why you're getting downvotes.
MoonAmericanFloydHeywoodR
This simplistic chart also forgets about STATE and LOCAL taxes, which soared under Reaganomics. States, including the most Republican of all, raised sales taxes and enacted occupational taxes and county income taxes, which were done solely to make up for lost revenue due to the combination of federal budget cuts and globalist trade treaties.
MoonAmericanFloydHeywoodR
And I should add that sales taxes and occupational taxes take a vastly bigger bite from the poor and middle incomes than the wealthy or corporations.
Something1Said
Do the top 1% of earners earn a combined 35% of all income? What percentage of all income is theirs, if not?
Tarmaccian
A naive way to compute it is just by comparing percentiles.
99th percentile starts at $450,000, while $23,000 is the 19th percentile (and 23000*19=437,000).
In other words, the top 1% makes more than the bottom 19%, even if everyone in the bottom 19% made $23,000.
Since not everyone in the bottom 19% makes that much, and not everyone in the top 1% makes that little, the actual equivalence point is a higher percentage… but this gives a lower bound to the computation.
Something1Said
Huh? I'm not asking for a vague sum, I'm asking for specifics. This data is from the IRS. The tax they paid is calculated based on a known income. To know what percentage income tax they paid, we must also know what percentage their combined income was.
Tarmaccian
I think what you’re looking for might be in here: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/p1304--2024.pdf#page=43
However, if the IRS doesn’t directly provide the number, an estimate is the best you can do, since accurate computation requires knowing protected personal information. Good luck!
TripleDane
is there a point here?
Einstein9073
They are trying to imply that because the rich pay more money, they are paying more than their share.
A proper calculation would reveal that the rich people pay far less
CarlBassett
Well yeah, when one group earns 19% of income but pays 35% of income tax then yes, they are paying their share. If you and a bunch of friends went to a restaurant and you ate 19% of the food but they asked you to pay 35% of the bill then you are paying more than your share.
TripleDane
Correct but he was a coward to say anything because he wanated to dumb and run not really stand up for what he was saying. so o pulled him out so he cant backpedal on it later
Einstein9073
I carefully waited until the person in question had already responded, before I gave the real, good-faith explanation.
CarlBassett
Yes. The point is the top 10% of earners pay 68% of income tax. The bottom 50%, half the entire population, only pays 3%.
geekstudios
It says nothing about whether the tax system is progressive or not. So either you don’t understand how taxes work or you are trying to mislead. The biggest reason is massive income disparity. Capitol gains is only taxed at 15% so the super wealthy end up paying a lower tax rate than I do, especially when you add in SS and Medicare/Medicaid of which the wealthy don’t pay any. If you include employer contribution of those taxes (I paid for it with my labor) it gets even worse.
capmodel
*earners* - there’s your first clue. There are vast sums of wealth that aren’t being “earned” and therefore not being taxed, ever.
nicelyvillainous
How much of the tax mess paid by the wealthy is on income generate by those bottom 50%, that they are not paid for because capitalism? Like if someone is a landscaper working for $20/hr, but is generating $50/hr for their boss, they pay little tax. If we adjust that pay structure, and the worker gets paid $40/hr instead, suddenly they are paying more of the taxes there.
Also, yeah, pretty sure you get to that 50% only if you include retired people and minors. Who generally shouldn’t pay taxes
TripleDane
So not point just random data
SlammedCarsAreRuinedCars
Do you need commentary or opinion? It's data. Read it yourself. Not everyone needs to be a pundit to present information.
CarlBassett
That proves the claim in the headline is correct. It IS a progressive tax. The wealthy pay far more.