Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder Elon Musk recently tweeted some massive shade at U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren over her past comment on the payment of his taxes.
In his tweet, Musk said he plans to visit the IRS to "say hi" the next time he's in Washington, DC since he paid the largest tax bill ever in history. He then ended his tweet with, "Maybe I can have a cookie or something..."
The tweet was in response to Sen. Warren's comment during her guest appearance on CNN's morning TV show, New Day, where she said that that billionaires like Musk should pay their taxes and not make it optional.
"What we've now seen is that giant corporations and billionaires have enough tricks in the Tax Code," Sen. Warren said, per the CNN interview. "You know how much [Elon Musk] paid in taxes, one of the richest people in the world? Zero!"
Sen. Warren added that Musk and other billionaires don't pay their taxes because they are only taxed on income and that they're making sure they have "no official income."
"They just have all this stock that keeps building in value," Sen. Warren added. "They borrow against it - it's just not right. We need a system in America where everyone gets the benefits of being an American, but that means everyone pays a fair share to keep this country running."
Elon Musk 2021 Taxes
Elon Musk announced last December 2021 that he would pay the largest tax bill in history after Sen. Warren tweeted to "change the rigged tax code so The Person of the Year will actually pay taxes and stop freeloading off everyone else".
According to Musk's response on the matter, he would be paying over $11 billion in taxes at the time.
Meanwhile, a Propublica investigation in June 2021 revealed that Musk paid no federal income tax in 2018 and that only paid $455 million in federal income taxes between 2014 and 2018. His total wealth from the same period grew to $13.9 billion.
How America's Richest Avoid Taxes
As Sen. Warren mentioned, billionaires finesse or exploit loopholes in the Tax Code to get away with avoiding taxes. An example is borrowing money against their stock or portfolio, which isn't taxable or reported on a tax return.
However, there are other ways to get away with not paying taxes. According to Unlimited Financial Services' founder and CEO Sharif Muhammad, billionaires may receive stock-based compensation which they can sell should their value decrease to zero out their taxable growth, via CNBC.
Another way billionaires avoid taxes is giving large sums to their heirs to avoid capital gains tax and paying estate taxes. Muhammad mentioned that the value of the inherited property adjusts to what it's worth at the time of the original owner's death, known as a "step-up in basis."
Propublica's report also added that of the 25 richest people in America, a quarter of them are heirs of fortune: three are the Waltons (the family behind Walmart), two are from the Mars family (the one responsible for Mars chocolate) and one from the Lauder family (the owner of Estée Lauder Companies, a multinational manufacturer and marketer of skincare, makeup, fragrance and hair care products).
