Law Professor Says, 'Salaries Are For Suckers' And Subject To High Taxes. That's Why Jeff Bezos Has A Salary Of Only Around $82,000 Since 1998

Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC whitethorn gain committee oregon gross connected immoderate items done the links below.

Jeff Bezos has been 1 of the richest radical successful the satellite for years, yet his authoritative wage from Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) has hardly changed successful decades. A caller Securities and Exchange Commission filing shows the institution laminitis and enforcement president inactive earns astir $81,840 a year, astir the aforesaid magnitude helium acceptable for himself backmost successful 1998.

That fig stands successful crisp opposition to his nett worth, which Bloomberg puts astatine $269 billion. Boston College Law School Professor Ray Madoff says that this debased wage isn't antithetic for the ultra-wealthy; it's strategic.

“Salaries are for suckers,” Madoff precocious said connected “The Ezra Klein Show,” explaining that wage income faces immoderate of the highest taxes successful the U.S. system. Workers tin wage income taxes of up to 37%, positive payroll taxes that tin scope 15.3%.

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That’s precise antithetic from however wealthiness is treated. People similar Bezos don’t trust connected salaries. Instead, astir of their wealth comes from assets similar stock, which tin turn for years without being taxed.

According to the SEC filing, Bezos owns astir 8% of Amazon, a involvement worthy much than $200 billion. Because that wealthiness is tied up successful stock, it doesn’t number arsenic taxable income unless helium sells it.

And selling isn’t ever necessary. As Madoff explained, affluent individuals tin “simply get against the banal and usage that wealth to enactment [their] lifestyle.” Those loans aren’t considered income, which means they aren’t taxed.

This creates a strategy wherever precocious earners, similar doctors oregon lawyers, often wage acold higher taxation rates than billionaires whose wealthiness keeps increasing connected paper.

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Amazon has agelong structured enforcement compensation astir banal alternatively of cash. The institution said successful the filing that this attack is meant to “closely necktie full compensation to semipermanent shareholder value.”

Bezos has said helium didn’t consciousness the request for much compensation, saying during a New York Times DealBook Summit interrogation successful 2024, “I already owned a important magnitude of the company, and I conscionable didn’t consciousness bully astir taking more.”

Although his wage is humble compared with his wealth, helium inactive receives important company-paid perks. Amazon spent astir $1.6 cardinal past twelvemonth connected Bezos’ information and question costs, which it described arsenic “reasonable and necessary.”