Jeff Bezos
Image: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Taxes weren't the reason he moved to Florida, says the Amazon founder. Nevertheless, it pays off – in the truest sense of the word.
MBillionaires move away from their old home for a variety of reasons. But their goal is regularly a low-tax location. When Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced last year that he was moving from Washington State to Florida, his central motive was that he wanted to live close to his parents and his space company Blue Origin. There was no mention of taxes.
However, Washington State levied a capital gains tax of 7 percent after deductions for the first time in 2023. It is now clear from publicly available stock market documents that Bezos has sold 24 million Amazon shares worth $4 billion in recent days. The sale of a further 26 million shares is to follow. Divesting at this time and in this new focus of his life is estimated to save Bezos about $280 million. The assumption is that Bezos never purchased a share, so the entire share price development becomes capital gains that are realized when sold. Florida has no capital gains taxes.
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