The world’srichest man(orsecond richest , look on who you ask ) has used a Twitter poll to decide whether or not he should pay tax . Elon Musk , presently last under the Twitter handle " Lorde Edge " , took to Twitter on Saturday to ask his followers if he should sell Tesla origin so that he could " in person " give revenue enhancement .
The SpaceX CEO , estimate to be worth over $ 300 billion , promised that he would put up by the results of his crown , whatever the termination .
" Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a mean value of tax avoidance , so I propose selling 10 % of my Tesla line , " Elon , whose worthjumped $ 36 billion in a single daylast month , wrote on Twitter . " Do you corroborate this ? "
The final results showed that 58 percent were in favor of the move , with 42 percent against it . Musk – who paid $ 0 in federal income tax in 2018 , harmonize to ananalysis by ProPublica – has since indicated he is still prepared to go with the poll outcome . Tesla ’s Frankfurt - list part light about 3 percent following the results of the poll , allot to Reuters .
Musk notes that " I do not take a John Cash salary or bonus from anywhere . I only have stock , thus the only way for me to pay taxes personally is to sell stock . " Though some on social medium have praised him for being willing to betray off stock in purchase order to compensate more taxes , others – including US Senator Ron Wyden – are of the vox populi that Twitter polls should n’t play any part of the tax system .
" Whether or not the world ’s wealthiest man pays any taxes at all should n’t look on the results of a Twitter poll,“Wyden wrote . " It ’s time for the Billionaires Income Tax . "
" Why does ur pp look like u just come ? " Elon Muskresponded .
The " Billionaires revenue enhancement " would see taxpayer in the US with assets deserving more than $ 1 billion have their stocks and other asset appraise every year , regardless of whether they have sell the plus or not , and task consequently . presently , the owners of these plus are only taxed when the assets are sold and gain book . stemma and plus that remain unsold but conjure in value are get laid as " unrealized gains " , and it is this which will be taxed if the Billionaires tax go through .
Each class , Mr. Bezos makes a salary of around $ 80,000 and over the catamenia 2010 - 2018 , for example , his unrealized ( or fall ) capital gains from his Amazon stock holdings were over $ 10 billion a year on average .
" Currently , under this simplified example , if Mr. Bezos does not trade any of his Amazon part in a given twelvemonth , the income taxation disregard the $ 10 billion increase , and effectively he is task like a in-between - class individual pretend $ 80,000 a year , " Director of Federal Tax Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and exponent of the taxexplained on Twitter .
" This happens because the tax code currently only treat as income working capital gain that have been ' agnize ' – when an asset is sell – and does not process “ unrealized ” increase as income . Proponents of a Billionaires revenue enhancement , like me , are order it does not make sense to assess Jeff Bezos like he was a middle - course person with $ 80,000 of income . "
Until that loophole is close , mayhap Twitter polls will fill the gap .
