The world's fourth-richest person wants Washington to stop taxing the bottom half of America.
Bezos said it on "Squawk Box" Wednesday. His pitch is simple.
Zero federal income tax for the bottom 50% of US earners. Today that group pays just 3% of total income tax.
Bezos wants that share to be zero.
Bezos is talking about more than 76 million US households. That group earned under $54,000 on average in 2023.
Most paid around $913 in federal income tax that year, per Tax Foundation data citing the IRS.
The top 1% looks nothing like that group. Those filers earned at least $676,000 in 2023.
They paid 40% of the federal income tax bill. Their average rate was 26.3%.
The bottom half paid an average rate of 3.7%.
Bezos called the lost cash a small sum for the government. Then he gave a setup.
A nurse in Queens making $75,000.
The government should be sending her an apology, he said. Not a tax bill.
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The timing of the pitch is not random.
Low earners are taking the hardest hit in what some call the K-shaped economy.
High earners keep climbing while low and middle earners fall behind.
The New York Fed has tracked the split since pandemic aid ran out in 2023. It has gotten worse this year.
Gas prices have jumped since the Iran war began on Feb. 28. Low earners spend a bigger share of their paychecks at the pump than rich ones do.
"It's kind of a tale of two economies," Bezos said.
That gap is the backdrop he is asking lawmakers to fix.
Bezos is not alone in the idea.
Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) brought the Keep Your Pay Act in March.
The bill would make the first $75,000 of income tax-free for joint filers, with single filers and heads of household getting smaller cuts.
A few Democratic states are also looking at higher taxes on top earners.
Bezos said he would push for cuts on the bottom half. He did not say how lawmakers should pull it off.
A tax cut for the bottom half would land in shoppers' wallets first.
Most of that group lives paycheck to paycheck, so new cash tends to get spent fast.
That could feed sales for big-box stores like Walmart, Target, and Dollar General. It could also lift demand for staples and low-cost services.
Bonds may not love the trade, since less tax revenue could mean more federal borrowing.
That is the kind of trade-off Wall Street is already running models on.
Bezos has a net worth of about $269 billion. He just argued that 76 million US households should send Washington zero in federal income tax.
He did not say how to get there.
The pitch now sits where pitches like it tend to end up. Waiting on Congress.
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