When they do, they earn money and they get taxed. The federal government considers almost every dollar employees earn to be "earnings," and employers take taxes straight out of their paychecks. The Bezoses of the world have no need to be paid a wage. Bezos' Amazon salaries have actually long been set at the middle-class level of around $80,000 a year.
Steve Jobs took $1 in salary when he went back to Apple in the 1990s. Facebook's Zuckerberg, Oracle's Larry Ellison and Google's Larry Page have all done the very same. Yet this is not the self-effacing gesture it seems: Wages are taxed at a high rate. The top 25 wealthiest Americans reported $158 million in earnings in 2018, according to the IRS information.
1% of what they noted on their tax forms as their total reported earnings. The rest mainly originated from dividends and the sale of stock, bonds or other financial investments, which are taxed at lower rates than wages. how billionaires pay less taxes cling to shares in the business they have actually founded. Buffett, for example, has notoriously held onto his stock in Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate that owns Geico, Duracell and stakes in American Express and Coca-Cola.
From 2015 through 2018, he reported annual income varying from $11. 6 million to $25 million. That might appear like a lot, however Buffett ranks as approximately the world's sixth-richest person he's worth $110 billion since Forbes' quote in Might 2021. A minimum of 14,000 U.S. taxpayers in 2015 reported higher income than him, according to IRS information.
Berkshire does not pay a dividend, the amount (a piece of the earnings, in theory) that numerous companies pay each quarter to those who own their stock. Buffett has actually always argued that it is better to use that cash to find financial investments for Berkshire that will even more boost the worth of shares held by him and other investors.