Bezos: Bottom Half Workers Pay 3% of All Taxes — ‘It Should Be Zero’

On Wednesday, on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Amazon founder and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos said lower-salaried workers should not be paying taxes.

Co-host Andrew Ross Sorkin said, “One of the topics that I thought we should talk about and maybe even start with, yeah, is these days it feels almost impossible to pick up a newspaper without reading a headline about wealth in America. About the billionaire class, about wealth inequality and policy and and everything else. And it’s taking a uniquely critical turn, I think. And I’m so curious, before we even get into everything else, what you think about that right now.”

Bezos said, “Well, first of all, I’m glad you’re asking the question. I think it’s a really important topic. And I think it’s an important one to discuss because I see the same thing you do. You know, you see a whole bunch of headlines, you see it in a bunch of places. I have been thinking about like, what is what is driving this? That seemed different from ten years ago. I think what’s going on is it’s a tale of two economies. So you have a bunch of people in this country who are doing really well, but you also have a bunch of people in this country who are struggling to pay rent, groceries.”

He continued, “I started thinking about this and doing some research. A nurse in Queens who makes $75,000 a year has 12 more than $12,000 a year in taxes. Does that really make sense? So people talk about, you know, making the tax system more progressive. How about we start by having the nurse in Queens not pay taxes.”

Sorkin said, “At all?”

Bezos said, “At all. why is a nurse in Queens who makes $75,000 a year, paying more than $1,000 a month in taxes? That’s $1,000 a month that could help with rent or groceries or anything. And so and by the way, do you know what that all adds up to the the bottom half of income earners in this country pay only 3% of the taxes. It’s only 3%. We can find 3%. It’s a small amount of money for the government, you know that. And really it’s and the more I thought about it, to me it’s kind of absurd that we’re doing this. You know, we shouldn’t be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington. They should be sending her an apology. It really makes no sense.”