Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos on Wednesday called for zero federal income taxes on the bottom half of earners.
The top 1% of taxpayers pay 40% of all the tax revenue, and the bottom half pay 3%, Bezos told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on “Squawk Box.”
“I don’t think it should be 3%,” Bezos said. “I think it should be zero.”
Bezos said the income tax paid by lower earners is “a small amount of money for the government,” and offered the hypothetical example of a healthcare worker who makes $75,000 a year.
“We shouldn’t be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington,” he said. “They should be sending her an apology. It really makes no sense.”
Bezos’ comments come as a number of Democratic states explore higher taxes on the wealthy.
The average income tax rate in 2023 was 14.1%, according to a Tax Foundation analysis of the latest IRS data. The top 1% of taxpayers paid a 26.3% average rate, seven times higher than the 3.7% average rate paid by the bottom half of taxpayers.
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