Sen. Elizabeth Warren celebrated tax day yesterday with a slew of tweets calling out “freeloading billionaires and giant corporations” for not paying taxes, but she — conveniently — highlighted only certain years while leaving out years they, you know, paid a lot in taxes.
In other words, this is textbook disinformation.
Her first tweet targeted Jeff Bezos who “paid $0 in federal income taxes in 2007 and 2011”:
Here’s a #TaxDay reminder about why we need to crack down on freeloading billionaires and giant corporations. pic.twitter.com/Cpu1xKed1X
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) April 18, 2022
But she left out the years he did pay income taxes, which we know from ProPublica:
According to the stolen ProPublica data, Jeff Bezos paid almost $1.2 billion in federal income taxes between 2013 and 2018 https://t.co/XFhbtZQ9AP
— Jeremy Horpedahl 🍞 (@jmhorp) April 18, 2022
And as ProPublica pointed out, it’s hard to pay income taxes in years you have no income:
The presence of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos — either the first- or second-wealthiest person in America, depending on the day — won’t shock most people, but Bezos’s annual reported income during these years of $832 million put him only at number 15. He paid an effective tax rate of 23.2%; as we’ve previously reported, Bezos had so little income in a couple of recent years that he was able to pay $0 in federal income taxes in those periods.
She also targeted Elon Musk for not paying taxes in 2018:
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) April 18, 2022
So, the $11 billion Musk paid in taxes this year just doesn’t count?
Elon paid $11 billion in federal income taxes this year, more than any person ever.
Stay classy, Senator. https://t.co/FIaHaBHuas
— Eli Dourado (@elidourado) April 18, 2022
When Musk buys Twitter, he should suspend Sen. Warren for this misinformation:
For those wondering, I will pay over $11 billion in taxes this year
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 20, 2021
Warren also called out Amazon. . .
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) April 18, 2022
. . .and Occidental Petroleum over their taxes paid:
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) April 18, 2022
But, again, as the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy noted, these are “entirely legal” mechanisms:
The (entirely legal) mechanisms Amazon uses to achieve this are familiar. Tax credits account for $1.1 billion of the company’s tax avoidance, with deductions for excess stock options accounting for another $1 billion. The foreign-derived intangible income (FDII) deduction accounts for another $300 million. As we have noted previously, these are tax breaks that Congress has endorsed and even expanded. This means that Amazon’s 6 percent tax rate is a result that lawmakers have enabled and could prevent if they summon the political will to do so. This outcome will be very unlikely for Amazon and other very low-tax corporations to replicate in the future if Congress enacts the minimum corporate tax provision included in the Build Back Better Act passed by the House of Representatives in November.
In other words, senator, pass a law and get off Twitter if you want to change what these corporations do.
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