Wedding Protesters Say Bezos Should Pay More Tax. Here's How Much He Likely Did Pay

Forbes

17 hours ago

Activists from the UK-based collective "Everyone Hates Elon" and Greenpeace Italy unfurled the banner in Venice earlier this week, ahead of Jeff Bezos' and Lauren Sánchez's wedding weekend. Stefano Rellandini/AFP/Getty Images
'I f you can rent Venice for your wedding, you can pay more tax,' read a 4,300-square-foot banner unfurled across Venice's Piazza San Marco on Monday, days ahead of billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' wedding to former TV journalist Lauren Sánchez. 'This isn't just about one person—it's about changing the rules so no billionaire can dodge responsibility, anywhere,' Clara Thompson, campaigner for environmental activist organization Greenpeace (which helped organize the protest), wrote in a press release. 'The real issue is a broken system that lets billionaires skip out on their fair share of taxes while everyone else is left to foot the bill.'
So just how much in tax does Bezos really pay? The world's fourth-richest man—now worth an estimated $231 billion—likely paid some $2.7 billion in taxes in 2024, per Forbes estimates. The lion's share of that tax bill is the result of Bezos' record year of share sales: he offloaded $13.6 billion worth of Amazon stock as the e-commerce giant's share price soared 46% and pushed Bezos' net worth to an all-time high. In just one year, he got nearly $60 billion richer—meaning his taxes amounted to just 4.5% of his increase in wealth last year. (Bezos owns a nearly 9% stake in Amazon worth $203 billion.) That's because stock is only taxed when it's sold, and not on its appreciation in value; activists like the protesters in Venice this week want that to change. Bezos also donated $2.5 billion worth of Amazon shares to nonprofits over the last three years, which enabled him to reduce his 2024 tax bill by as much as an estimated $600 million.
'As long as they hold onto assets that gain in value, there's no tax, no matter how rich they are on paper,' says Brian Schultz, tax partner at wealth management and consulting firm Plante Moran. Bezos didn't pay any federal taxes in 2007 and 2011, per ProPublica reporting on leaked tax returns, and likely paid little in 2022 and 2023, two years when he didn't sell any Amazon shares. (Amazon doesn't pay dividends, which are also subject to taxes.)
The protesters in Venice say that Bezos—and billionaires like him—should be taxed on their wealth (as opposed to their income) or the appreciation of their unsold stock in order to pay their 'fair share.' Per a 2018 UC Berkeley study based on Forbes data, families in the top 0.1% of Americans by net worth were estimated to owe just 3.2% of their wealth in taxes in 2019, while the bottom 99% were estimated to have owed 7.2%; since then, America's richest have only gotten richer, and Bezos' estimated tax bill for 2024 amounts to around 1% of his estimated net worth. If some of the plans to tax billionaires more that have been proposed recently were in effect, his tax bill for last year would have likely more than tripled but would still be a small fraction of his net worth.
B ezos founded Amazon in 1994 and took it public in 1997. (Had he never parted with any of his stock, Bezos would still own a 22% stake worth more than $500 billion today.) Since then, Amazon hasn't awarded Bezos additional stock and has paid him a modest salary—$81,840 in 2020, the year before he stepped down as CEO. He's not just being humble. Having cash salaries as low as $1 is a common, tax-advantageous move among executives because, while cash income is taxed in the year the executive receives it, shares of company stock don't get taxed until they're sold for a profit. That means Bezos can defer paying taxes on the stock he's owned for decades.
In 2023, Bezos announced his move to Florida with a sentimental video his dad took of him at Amazon's first 'office' (his garage in Seattle) and Bezos explaining how he wanted to be closer to his parents, who'd recently moved back to Miami. What he didn't mention: The move also allowed him to avoid the newly-enacted 7% state capital gains tax in Washington, where he'd lived since 1994. The fact that he sold a record sum the first year he lived in Florida might be coincidental, but it saved him a bundle. The $13.6 billion from Bezos' 2024 Amazon share sales was likely subject to the top 23.8% rate for federal taxes on long-term capital gains, resulting in an estimated $3.2 billion federal tax liability before deductions. Had he still lived in Washington, he likely would have paid nearly 31%, or another $1 billion in taxes. Like Washington, Florida has no state income tax. As Bezos, 61, nears the average American's retirement age, the Sunshine State offers one other advantage: no state estate tax (and as for the federal estate tax, most billionaires are able to avoid that anyway).
Amazon share sales aside, Bezos pays a smattering of other taxes. For example, property taxes: Over the last five years, Bezos spent more than $500 million to add several splashy homes to his real estate portfolio, including three (or possibly four) properties on Miami-Dade County's 'billionaire bunker,' Beverly Hills' nine-acre Warner Estate and a secluded estate on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Bezos' properties in Florida, Washington, California, D.C., New York and Hawaii cost him around $7 million in 2024 property taxes, per local government websites. (He also sold one of his Washington state properties for $63 million last year, which resulted in around $10 million in estimated taxes.)
Bezos could pay annual taxes on other investments. Since he made a reported $250,000 bet on Google in 1998, Bezos has invested in at least 108 startups—and now holds stakes in several high-profile AI companies, including humanoid robotics firm Figure AI and AI-powered search engine Perplexity. (Dow Jones & Co. sued the company in 2023 alleging large-scale illegal copying of copyrighted work; Forbes sent Perplexity a cease-and-desist letter accusing the company of using its reporting without permission in June 2024.) If any of the companies he bet on are acquired, conduct private share sales, pay dividends or go public, Bezos would need to pay capital gains taxes on that income. Additionally, if Bezos has other income-generating investments, like dividend- or interest-paying stocks or bonds, that would add to his tax bill as well, according to Matthew Lee, director of wealth strategies at investment manager Wilmington Trust.
Then there are the tax deductions, mostly due to charitable contributions. Bezos is one of America's top givers by dollar amount, per Forbes' calculations, having given away more than $4 billion during his lifetime to climate, housing and education causes, as well as the Smithsonian and the Obama Foundation. Donors can immediately deduct up to 20% or 30% of their adjusted gross income via stock gifts to charitable organizations, regardless of whether those charities actually use the funds that year (and potentially more via charitable trusts, although Bezos isn't known to use them). Donors can also carry forward unused deductions from the past five years.
'Of course you have to have a desire to support charities,' says Plante Moran's Schultz of wealthy philanthropists. 'But if they're going to donate to charity, there's certainly incentive to try to make sure that it's as tax beneficial as possible for the money that they're looking to give.'
Here's how that likely applies to Bezos. Bezos had a capital gain of nearly $13.6 billion from selling Amazon stock in 2024. He didn't sell any Amazon stock in 2022 and 2023—when shares were down and when Washington was in the process of enacting its 7% state capital gains tax—and likely didn't report nearly as much income in those years. That means Bezos' charitable contributions from 2022 to 2024 could have been deductible on his 2024 tax return. According to securities filings, Bezos gifted $2.5 billion worth of Amazon stock to nonprofit organizations during that period—just under 20% of his estimated 2024 income. If all applied to his 2024 tax bill, the gifts could have reduced Bezos' tax obligation by as much as $600 million.
One other way the ultra-wealthy often avoid taxes is by borrowing against their shares tax-free instead of selling them, which would trigger capital gains taxes. Elon Musk, the world's richest person, famously employs this approach with his Tesla shares. Amazon discloses in regulatory filings that directors like Bezos 'may not pledge Amazon securities as collateral for a loan' unless the arrangement is 'precleared with the Legal Department.' As Amazon's executive chair, Bezos would be required to disclose pledged shares in regulatory filings, and hasn't done so. Still, he could borrow against other stocks he owns.
Proposals for taxing the ultra-wealthy more do exist. In 2021, Senator Elizabeth Warren proposed an 'Ultra-Millionaire Tax' that would impose a 6% annual wealth tax on fortunes above $1 billion, and claimed it would bring in nearly $3.75 trillion over a decade. During her 2024 presidential campaign, former vice president Kamala Harris expressed support for a proposal that people worth more than $100 million pay a minimum of 25% of their income (which would be expanded to include 'unrealized capital gains') in taxes.
Neither proposal has been successful so far. But if enacted, Forbes estimates that Bezos would have needed to pay more than $10 billion in additional taxes under either Warren's or Harris' preferred approach. Neither sum would dent his fortune much at all. 'Every handful of years, depending on the makeup in Washington, those proposals get resurrected,' says Wilmington Trust's Lee. 'But I think you're seeing more politicians who seem to be interested in exploring those.'
As for his wedding? Getting married isn't likely to affect his tax bill much, if at all. Bezos and Sánchez are so far above income thresholds that would make filing joint taxes financially advantageous for them. And especially because this isn't a first marriage for either of them, almost all property is likely to be kept separate, taxed separately and bound to a strict prenuptial agreement, regardless of whether they file taxes jointly or not, says Lauren Crane, partner at family and matrimonial law firm Bender and Crane. In any case, Bezos is certainly saving enough on tax deductions to cover the costs of his and Sanchez's star-studded wedding festivities, from canals to cakes.
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