Afraid of paying up to $50 billion in taxes, Elon Musk said, “I’d rather use that money to send people to Mars.”

Tram Ho

Being the richest person in the world, it is not difficult to understand why Mr. Elon Musk vehemently opposes the bill to tax billionaires of the Joe Biden administration. If passed, this law could force Musk to pay up to $50 billion in taxes due to his huge fortune.

If it weren’t for that $50 billion, Musk argued, the money could be used for the goal of conquering Mars with rockets manufactured by his SpaceX company. “My plan is to use money to bring humanity to Mars and maintain the light of knowledge .” Musk said in his tweet on Thursday.

Sợ phải trả đến 50 tỷ USD tiền thuế, Elon Musk nói Thà dùng số tiền đó để đưa người lên Sao Hỏa - Ảnh 1.

Earlier, as proposed by Senator Ron Wyden, a new tax bill would target the 700 richest people in America. Of course, this will affect the people at the top of this list, including Elon Musk, billionaire Jeff Bezos, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

In particular, Mr. Musk’s assets are far behind those behind when, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, they are worth up to 300 billion USD. Much of his wealth, though, is tied to his holdings rather than to an actual income.

Under the new tax bill, people with annual income over $100 million or assets worth at least $1 billion held for three years or more will have to pay billions of dollars in taxes. Accordingly, Mr. Musk will likely have to pay a tax of $ 50 billion within the first 5 years. Meanwhile, his rival, billionaire Jeff Bezos also has to pay an equally large tax, amounting to $ 44 billion.

Even so, even with this huge tax, both Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos will still be the two richest people in the world.

Not only thinks the tax will affect his plans to conquer Mars, Mr. Musk also thinks it won’t solve the problem: ” In the end, they will spend all of other people’s money and then they will find you .”

Sợ phải trả đến 50 tỷ USD tiền thuế, Elon Musk nói Thà dùng số tiền đó để đưa người lên Sao Hỏa - Ảnh 2.

Unlike most Americans, who are mostly wage earners and pay annual income taxes, billionaires like Mr. Bezos or Mr. Musk have only a very small amount of income coming from their salaries. As a result, they can skip paying income tax.

Meanwhile, billionaire Jeff Bezos does not seem to have reacted to the new tax bill mentioned above. The majority of Mr. Bezos’ $196 billion fortune is a 10.3% stake in retailer Amazon, which is currently worth about $175 billion. Due to the fluctuating stock prices, the billionaire has at one time competed for the position of the richest man in the world with Mr. Elon Musk.

However, Mr. Bezos can bypass the tax when under current US law, shares that increase in price are not taxed unless the holder sells them to realize a profit. So even if they are the main contributor to billionaires’ wealth, they are not considered “income” for tax purposes – even though they can be worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

On the other hand, they can also turn these shares into cash and still pay no taxes – that is, mortgage the shares to borrow money. This way, they can still borrow money at an interest rate lower than the tax they pay when they sell the stock. This is also a favorite practice of Mr. Musk as he constantly brings in his shares as collateral for new loans.

Consult Business Insider

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Source : Genk