Jeff Bezos has money. Us normal folk joke about rich people using C-notes to wipe their noses (or worse, but this is a family friendly article), but the founder of Amazon earns a cool $7.9 million per hour so he literally could do exactly that and probably wouldn’t notice the loss.
So why are we talking about the world’s second richest person rather than Paychecks for normal folks? Well, someone like Bezos can teach us a few things about how to handle our own money, even if we have a whole lot less of it. For example, how does he deal with Washington State’s capital gains tax?
Here are Five Fast Facts on Washington State’s capital gains tax moves:
- 🚫 No Yachts Saved - The effort to repeal the state’s capital gains tax – nicknamed “Save the Yachts” – was defeated in the election a few weeks ago. That means the 7% tax on the sale of things over $250k remained in place.
- 👋 Bye Felicia (And Everyone Else) - Bezos moved from Washington State to Florida in 2023. While neither state has income tax, Florida also has no capital gains tax. In effect, Bezos said “hard pass, I’ll keep my money, thank you very much.”
- 🤏 Big Difference - Moving made a huge difference in his tax bill for this year - being in Florida saved him literally around $954 million. His capital gains tax alone was bigger than all others in the state combined! But don’t worry, all you Tax Karens out there, he’s still paying well over $3 billion in taxes this year. Fair share, and all that.
- 👀 It’s A Trend - If you look at the rich, they make decisions based in part on what taxes will do to them. The number of billionaires moving to Florida and Texas more than doubled from 2003 to 2024 because they’re much more tax-friendly states. Also, the more money you have, the more likely you are to move to a better location because you can. It’s not rocket science!
- 🤔 Bringing It Home - So, why should we care what the rich do? Well, when the rich move around, they tend to take the jobs with them. After all, the “poor” don’t create many companies that hire lots of other people! Also, when those tax dollars disappear, that missing tax revenue hurts social services that help people in the local area. So, it would make sense to agree on tax policies that make those rich people want to stick around, right?
🔥Bottom line: Maybe you don’t owe a billion dollars in taxes, and maybe you won’t ever sell anything for hundreds of millions of dollars. But is your house worth more than $250k? Then capital gains tax affects you if you sell it. Do you plan to give money to your kids after you pass away? Then inheritance taxes should matter to you. Do you have a job? Then income tax affects you. We might play at a much lower level than billionaires, but taxes apply to all of us somehow. If we want our economy to thrive, we need to advocate for tax policies that allow that to happen, and watching what the rich do can help us figure that stuff out.
What do you make of all this?
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