Sen. Warren says Jeff Bezos ‘forgot to thank all the hardworking Americans who actually paid taxes’ after his space flight
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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.
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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’ 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.