For roughly 76 million American households, federal income taxes could eventually disappear—if a proposal by billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos ever becomes reality.
The now Blue Origin owner argued in a recent interview with CNBC that the bottom half of U.S. earners should pay no income tax, saying that working Americans shouldn’t be placed under increased financial pressure, considering they contribute a relatively small share of total tax revenue anyway.
“The bottom half of income earners in this country pay only 3% of the taxes,” Bezos said. “I think it should be zero.”
To make his case, Bezos questioned why a hypothetical healthcare worker as an example: “Why is a nurse in Queens who makes $75,000 a year paying more than $1,000 a month in taxes?”
“To me, it’s kind of absurd that we’re doing this. We shouldn’t be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington,” Bezos added. “They should be sending her an apology. It really makes no sense.”
