Amazon Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos on Wednesday accused politicians of vilifying the ultra-rich and using tax policy as a political blocking issue to distract from the bigger challenges facing the country.
“You could double the taxes I pay, and that’s not going to help that teacher in Queens,” Bezos said. CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“I think what’s happening is a tale of two economies. So there’s a group of people in this country who are doing very well, but there’s also a group of people in this country who are struggling,” he said.
“What’s happening here is politicians are using an age-old technique… you know, picking a bad guy and pointing the finger, but the problem is it doesn’t solve anything,” Bezos said.
“Some people talk about making the tax system more progressive,” he said. “What if we started by making the nurse in Queens not pay taxes? » It’s unclear exactly what taxes Bezos was referring to.
But approximately 40% of American households owed no personal income taxes for the 2024 tax year, according to the Tax Policy Center. This is consistent with previous years and other public data.
The poorest 50% of U.S. taxpayers had an average income of just $53,801 per year in 2023, according to recent data from the Tax Foundation.
Bezos, meanwhile, is the fourth richest person in the world, with a net worth of over $270 billion.
Tax rates, he told CNBC, are “certainly a perfectly valid political debate.”
Mamdani’s New York During the CNBC interview, Bezos, who moved to Miami, Florida and whose companies are headquartered in Washington state, repeatedly brought up New York City’s finances.
Zohran Mamdani, the city’s mayor, has emerged as a popular foe of billionaires and millionaires since taking office in January.
Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, also proposed higher taxes on the wealthy.
Billionaires and high-end real estate agents warned that Mamdani’s victory last year and his policies would drive businesses and the wealthy out of New York.
But the first elements seem to contradict this prediction.
A month before Mamdani’s election, JPMorgan Chase opened its new world headquarters at 270 Park Avenue, a sign that one of New York’s largest employers has no plans to leave anytime soon.
The luxury apartment market in Manhattan also surged in the weeks after Mamdani’s election, with contracts signed for units. priced at $4 million or more, up 25% in November.
Since then, the luxury apartment market continued to follow at a similar pacewith contracts in May up 10% compared to a year ago.
Sales in an even higher-end market, units priced above $10 million, jumped 80% in May from a year earlier.
In February, American Express announcedalongside Mamdani, that she would build a brand new global headquarters in downtown Manhattan that would house more than 10,000 employees.
“Tax the rich”But on Tax Day this year, April 15, Mamdani posted a now-viral video on social media in which he stood in front of 220 Central Park South, a residential building along what’s known as Billionaires Row, to declare, “We’re taxing the rich.”
In the videoMamdani announced a proposed “pied-à-terre” tax, which would apply to residential property owners who do not live full-time in the city.
Mamdani’s video featured several high-end Manhattan buildings but focused on billionaire Ken Griffin, who purchased a penthouse in the building for $238 million in 2019.
The purchase is believed to be the most expensive private home sale ever in the United States. Griffin has a net worth of nearly $50 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Griffin fired back at Mamdani, threatening to change plans for his company’s new Manhattan office tower.
Griffin also accused Mamdani personally of putting him “in danger” by showing the building on video. He also referenced the 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in midtown Manhattan.
But Griffin’s purchase of the house and its address have been widely reported in the media since 2019, long before Mamdani ran for mayor.
Earlier this month, Griffin conceded a separate interview with CNBC that he would “probably” still move forward with his new office tower.
Broad support for taxing billionairesMamdani’s general approach to taxation is not unpopular.
An April poll conducted by FOX News found that “what bothers people most about the federal income tax is that the rich don’t pay enough.”
In March, Washington State approved a tax for millionaires. Other states have also focused on additional taxes for millionaires and billionaires.
Massachusetts, Maryland and Maine have all adopted dedicated high-income taxes in recent years. In January, the governor of Rhode Island endorsed the idea of a millionaires tax.
Lawmakers in Connecticut, Illinois, Colorado and California have also proposed similar ideas, according to Bloomberg.
At the federal level, a tax hike is unlikely as long as Republicans control the House, Senate and White House.