Based on ProPublica's analysis of IRS data, several top billionaires have paid zero in federal income taxes in specific years, including Jeff Bezos (2007, 2011), Elon Musk (2018), and George Soros (three consecutive years). Others, such as Michael Bloomberg, Carl Icahn, and Warren Buffett, have also paid little to no federal income tax in certain years.
In some years, billionaires such as Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and George Soros paid no federal income taxes at all. Billionaires avoid these taxes by taking out special ultra-low-interest loans available only to them and using their assets as collateral.
Al Capone. A federal grand jury indicted notorious gangster Al Capone, leader of the Chicago Outfit crime syndicate, with 22 counts of tax evasion totaling over $200,000 in 1931 (equivalent to more $3.8 million today).
Under the proposal, for instance, a billionaire cannot transfer wealth or incur a debt to their children to reduce liability, cannot escape wealth taxation by transferring property to a trust, and cannot work around limits on such transfers by selling assets for less than market value.
We thought Michigan residents might be interesting in learning how Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and several company insiders are using a legal tactic called a “grantor-retained annuity trust” to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in estate and gift taxes on their Facebook shares.
One of the biggest reasons Bezos pays little in personal income tax is that he doesn't rely on a traditional salary. Instead, he holds most of his wealth in Amazon stock. Here's why this matters: Capital gains taxes are much lower than income taxes in most cases.
Googlers call Zuckerberg's approach the 80 percent rule
She calls this idea the 80 percent rule. It states you should schedule only about 80 percent of your days. Leave 20 percent open to absorb whatever craziness comes up.
Yes, Elon Musk pays taxes, but his payments vary significantly year-to-year, often coming in large bursts when he sells Tesla stock to realize gains from stock options, as seen with his reported $11 billion federal tax bill for 2021, a massive payment triggered by stock option exercises, contrasting with other years where he's paid little to no federal income tax due to holding appreciating stock, according to reports from Americans For Tax Fairness (2021), ABC7 (2021), ProPublica (2021), and CNBC (2021). His wealth, primarily tied to stock, isn't taxed until shares are sold, meaning he can have huge wealth growth with little income tax in certain years, but triggers massive tax bills when exercising options or selling shares, as detailed in reports from Americans For Tax Fairness (undated), CNN (2022), and The Guardian (2021).
Here's the key insight: while Swift remains a US tax resident who pays taxes on worldwide income, expats doing comparable work abroad can apply her tax strategies while ALSO leveraging powerful expat benefits she can't access.
Actor Wesley Snipes was convicted in 2008 on three counts of failing to file a tax return. After losing his appeal, he was sentenced to three years in prison. Snipes' defense asserted that a rising tide of Americans feel they are constitutionally protected from paying taxes. Clearly, U.S. courts feel differently.
“Tesla: The company has used mechanisms like deferred tax assets, research and development credits, and massive deductions from Elon Musk's stock-based compensation to reduce its U.S. federal income tax to near zero in profitable years.”
Pop superstar Beyoncé and the IRS agree that she owes $709.20 in tax and penalties instead of the nearly $2.7 million that the agency had asserted in a deficiency notice, according to a stipulated decision approved by the Tax Court . The decision document in Knowles-Carter v.
How Tesla Legally Avoided Federal Taxes. Accelerated depreciation: By rapidly depreciating assets like factories and equipment, Tesla reduced its taxable income, saving approximately $500 million in 2024.
To buy a house, you generally need an income that allows for housing costs (mortgage, taxes, insurance) to be around 28-36% of your gross monthly income, but recent studies show buyers often need $100k+ annual income to afford a median-priced home due to rising prices and rates, with specific requirements varying by location and loan type. A common guideline is the 28/36 rule: spend no more than 28% on housing and 36% on total debt, but lenders look at your Debt-to-Income (DTI) ratio, ideally keeping total debt under 43%.
But how people define “upper class” differs. Some say you'd need to be making twice the median income, or around $167,460. Even more elite are those who find themselves in the top 5 percent of earners. In the U.S., you'd need to be making about $336,000 to find yourself in the top 5 percent, according to Census data.
The Bezos $2.7 billion income tax payment, Liu noted in her Forbes analysis, represented only 4.5 percent of the 2024 increase in his personal net worth — approximately $60 billion — and barely more than 1 percent of his overall $230 billion net worth.
“I'm the largest individual tax payer in history. I pay over $10 billion in tax." — Elon Musk says.
Mark Zuckerberg famously became the world's youngest self-made billionaire at age 23 in 2008 after Facebook went public, though more recently, in late 2025, a trio of 22-year-olds (Brendan Foody, Adarsh Hiremath, and Surya Midha) from the AI company Mercor beat his record, becoming the youngest self-made tech billionaires.
Eminem has filed a lawsuit against Meta, which is owned by Mark Zuckerberg, over allegations that the tech company did not get permission to use his music across many of its platforms. Meta operates Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp.
Mira Murati, the woman who turned down US$1 bn from Mark Zuckerberg | IDNFinancials.