How our tax codes let the rich get richer: 'We need better tax laws'

How our tax codes are favor the wealthy over workers.

A day after the world's wealthiest man announced he was fulfilling a lifelong dream of going to space via a flight from his own private company, a bombshell investigative journalism piece reported that the billionaire "did not pay a penny" in federal income taxes in 2007 and 2011. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, founder of the private space-faring firm Blue Origin and the richest man in the world according to Bloomberg data, was among the billionaires whose tax returns were obtained and analyzed by the nonprofit news organization ProPublica. The ProPublica article reported that the ultra-wealthy were able to avoid paying income taxes, despite their net worths increasing dramatically, via legal accounting maneuvers. While the median American household paid 14% of their income in federal taxes, according to ProPublica, the wealthiest 25 Americans had a "true tax rate" that on average came out to 3.4% of the amount their wealth grew each year between 2014 and 2018. Bezos had not been accused of breaking any tax laws in the ProPublica reporting, which was based on a trove of IRS documents obtained by the news organization from an unnamed source. ABC News has not independently obtained the individuals' private tax information. A Bezos spokesperson did not respond to ABC News' request for comment.