I thought the ProPublica analysis of billionaire taxes was going to be exciting. Instead, it told me things I already knew: that the US tax code offers deductions for charitable donations, loan interest, and business operating expenses, and only taxes capital gains when you sell.
The most exciting thing is wondering who gave them the information, and how long that person will spend in jail when they're caught, as I suspect they will be.
This isn't a case where you could have gotten one person's partial records from an accountant or a disgruntled ex-spouse. Practically speaking, unless all the billionaires have the same tax attorney, I suspect the only place the data could have come from is the IRS itself.
If so, I see two possibilities:
1) The IRS was hacked, which would be a huge scandal, and make you wonder just how many tax returns the hackers have.
2) Employee, which would make you wonder just how bad IRS IT security is, and how good the employee was at covering their tracks
1) The IRS was hacked, which would be a huge scandal, and make you wonder just how many tax returns the hackers have.
2) Employee, which would make you wonder just how bad IRS IT security is, and how good the employee was at covering their tracks
But of course, I might be missing something--is there some other database that ought to contain the tax returns of the country's richest people?
Anyway, full disclosure: Jeff Bezos owns my newspaper, and is mentioned in the story, and Bloomberg, also mentioned, used to employ me, so discount my opinion accordingly. But I genuinely thought the tax avoidance strategies would be something more than unrealized capital gains.
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