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U.S. investigates disclosure of tax records on rich Americans

Published 06/08/2021, 04:14 PM
Updated 06/08/2021, 09:17 PM
© Reuters. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki holds a press briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S., June 8, 2021. REUTERS/Leah Millis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Treasury Department has asked law enforcement authorities to investigate the disclosure of tax records cited in a media report that showed that some of America's richest people paid little to no income taxes, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.

U.S. media outlet ProPublica said it obtained "a vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data on the tax returns of thousands of the nation's wealthiest people, covering more than 15 years." The data indicated that billionaires including Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) founder Elon Musk paid no federal income taxes during some years.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that "any unauthorized disclosure of confidential government information" is illegal.

Treasury Department spokeswoman Lily Adams said in an emailed statement that the matter has been referred to the FBI, federal prosecutors and two internal Treasury Department watchdogs, "all of whom have independent authority to investigate."

The IRS, part of the Treasury Department, is the nation's tax-collecting agency and many tax records are considered confidential documents. IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig also confirmed that an investigation is underway.

"Obviously we take it very seriously," Psaki told a briefing.

ProPublica described the records as "confidential" and did not disclose how it obtained them.

President Joe Biden has sought tax increases on the wealthy to help fund proposed spending on infrastructure and social programs, including raising the top tax rate to 39.6% from the current 37% and nearly doubling the capital gains tax rate to 39.6% for Americans earning $1 million annually or more.

"We know that there is more to be done to ensure that corporations (and) individuals who are at the highest income are paying more of their fair share," Psaki said.

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin and CEO of Amazon, speaks about the future plans of Blue Origin during an address to attendees at Access Intelligence's SATELLITE 2017 conference in Washington, U.S., March 7, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Rettig addressed the matter during testimony to the Senate Finance Committee.

"I can't speak to anything with respect to specific taxpayers. I can confirm that there is an investigation, with respect to the allegations that the source of the information in that article came from the Internal Revenue Service," Rettig said.

Latest comments

Halloween mask for sure
As others have pointed out here, this is all definitely rooted in misleading socialist propaganda. It is INCOME tax, not NET WORTH tax. Somebody could have made $100 million dollars when they were younger and have no current income and owe zero tax, it does not mean they did not pay tax in the past. Or somebody could have made a fortune last year but lost money in investments this year and owe no tax. Can you imagine if elderly retired people had to pay tax based on their net worth and were paying more tax than young people earning income? People not paying much tax certain years does not mean that they are not paying tax. Just misleading propaganda that socialists use. The real issue is currency devaluation...if you ever wonder why rich people like socialism, it is because they make more money based on currency devaluation and hurting small business competition than they do from tax that does not affect their investments where they hold most of their wealth.
Does anyone think really rich people don't have really smart people looking after their taxes? If these really rich folks don't pay a lot, whose fault is it? Hmmm, let me guess, the people who wrote the tax laws. Also not mentioned is how much charitable contributions minimized their tax bills. I am quite sure they were enormous. The Dems don't like rich people selecting their causes, they want the money for THEIR causes.
Exactly, like Biden wanting to triple the IRS budget claiming it will be used to go after rich people. Rich people are not worried, they have teams of accountants. All that this really means is that it will free up resources so that there are more agents to go after the rest of the people too. If they just wanted to go after rich people, they could just reduce the number of random audits to go after wealthy people. Its all just a show anyway, like part of the budget being to stuffy racial discrepancies for audits..despite race being nowhere on any tax forms.
*study
 They still *****for the days of Roosevelt's 90% tax brackets. John Kennedy thought that was excessive and reduced them to 70%. Reagan eliminated many loopholes and reduced them to around 35%, worse yet, he indexed the tax brackets to inflation. This is the REAL reason the Dems despise him and his legacy so much. Of course, we all know that things were going swimmingly well before he was elected...NOT.
Just go to a progressive, by income level, of a flat tax with no, zero, zilch tax deductions for incomes greater than $400,000 no matter the filing status.
It still would not address the misleading propaganda that places like Retuers try to spread. Most mega-rich people are not making annual massive salaries of their net worth each year. They have most of their wealth in investments that do not necessarily generate taxable income each year. Millionaires and billionaires are not generally making millions and billions in taxable income each year...their wealth is from government devaluation of currency and their investments grow in value. Meanwhile lower and middle class suffer from the currency devaluation. The rich pay their tax when appropriate, and they pay much higher levels than lower/middle class people. They do not tell people these things because it involves people using their brains which politicians and the media do not want.
As an example, if you have $100,000 of stocks, and their value increases to $200,000 and you do not sell them, do you have to pay $100,000 in tax on the gains? No, not until you sell them. Do you think Bezos and Musk have most of their wealth from selling their investments for cash? No. The have net worth, but socialists/communists like to mislead people that the should all have massive tax liabilities every year. If Musk sold $1 billion of stock and makes $1 billion in profits then he would have to pay tax on it like anybody else. But just because he is worth billions does not mean that he owes hundreds of millions of tax each year.
It still would not address the misleading propaganda. Most mega-rich people are not making annual massive salaries of their net worth each year. They have most of their wealth in investments that do not necessarily generate taxable income each year. Millionaires and billionaires are not generally making millions and billions in taxable income each year...their wealth is from government devaluation of currency and their investments grow in value. Meanwhile lower and middle class suffer from the currency devaluation. The rich pay their tax when appropriate, and they pay much higher levels than lower/middle class people. They do not tell people these things because it involves people using their brains which politicians and the media do not want.
LMAO so leaking IRS documents is a felony but the media and social media have no issue with this personal financial information being leaked/spread...but when anybody talks about Hunter Biden e-mails they magically have to sanitize the entire internet and stop it within minutes. If you do not like tax laws, fine blame the politicians who write them, does not mean that wealthy people deserve to have their privacy breached by criminal government employees who collude with the corrupt media.
So when it involved trumps, it was fine. but now it goes after their donors. so it's bad
When hunter biden e-mails leaked, the entire new apparatus and social media memory holed it and wiped it from the internet within house. But when Trump's records are illegally leaked CNN puts it on prime time and magically social media has no issues with people talking about it. Leftists are truly dangerous for society, hypocrites who selectively enforce laws for their political agenda. MSM like Reuters is complicit.
irony
This is why socialist/communist rhetoric is so dangerous. They do not teach these useful id.io.ts how money actually works. Just because somebody is a millionaire/billionaire does not mean that they have massive tax liability every year. Most mega-wealthy people have most of their wealth in investments. If you have $1 million in stock holdings, do you have to pay tax on that holding every year? Mega wealthy people pay tax when they sell their investments for profits, but that does not mean that every year they owe hundreds of millions of dollars. This is the sort of ignorance breed on social media due to the Dunning-Kruger effect...which leftist politicians rely on to keep people angry at each other rather than the politicians responsible for devaluing currency leading to wealthy people's investments turning into mega-fortunes while the lower and middle class suffer from the currency devaluation.
Also, just because people have wealth does not mean that it is not a felony to leak their personal financial information. Funny how they let the media share this leaked information, but when anybody talks about Hunter Biden e-mails they magically have to sanitize the entire internet.
so they are investigating the release of tax information instead of investigating the billionaires... lmao
Leaking IRS records is a felony, just because they are wealthy and a bunch of useful idi.o.ts are told to be angry at them does not man that they do not have the same rights as other people. And investigate what? Billionaires are almost always audited and monitored by the IRS. Just because they did not pay much tax does not mean they committed some crime. You do realize that most wealthy people have their wealth in investments such as stocks and are not making billions of dollars in salary each year so they may not always have massive tax liability each year? I guess people may not know this since they just brainwash people to be angry at wealthy people rather than the politicians responsible for devaluing currency and pumping the stock market.
Hahaha
well how else will these liberal elite sc-u-m prosper. typical hypocrites.
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