A Pro Publica report on June 8 shed light on an issue that raised the eyebrows of many Americans: the super wealthy don't pay any federal income tax.

Citing IRS data dating back 15 years, the Pro Publica report showed that the wealthiest Americans can legally pay income taxes that only make up a tiny fraction of hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars.

The names of the multibillionaires are known to many. The list includes Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, George Soros, and Michael Ichan.

Bezos, for example, did not pay a cent of income taxes in 2007 or 2011, from 2014 to 2018 he reported $4.22 billion in income and only paid $973 million, while he watched his wealth grow by an astounding $99 billion.

Musk paid no income taxes in 2018, and from 2014 to 2018 he reported $1.52 billion in income and paid only $455 million while watching his wealth grow by $13.9 billion.

President Biden and Congressional Democrats are currently pushing for higher taxes on the wealthy in order to pay for the American Families Plan proposal. Their plan would include raising the top tax bracket from 37% to 39.6% which is the same figure from the Obama administration. They also plan to tax the capital gains rate the same as ordinary income for the highest taxpayers, and taxing capital gains at death.

The way billionaires are able to avoid paying their taxes in many different ways to offset their gains using credits, deductions, or losses. In 2018, Bloomberg reported an income of $1.9 billion. The 2017 tax cuts helped Bloomberg to slash his bill by using deductions. The end result was paying $70 million in income tax, amounting to just 3.7%

Business Insider noted that Bezos has most of his wealth tied to Amazon’s stock holdings because stock gains are not taxed until they are sold off. As a result, his wealth was able to increase by $127 billion from 2006 to 2018. He only reported about $6.5 billion in income during that span, resulting in a bill of around $1.4 billion.

This would put his reported income at around 21% but that doesn’t account for the increases he had in net worth thanks to his stock ownership. When accounting for the $127 billion he added to his individual net worth, plus the $1.4 billion he paid in taxes, he only paid slightly over 1% in taxes.

Bezos can also turn these stocks into cash without being forced to sell because he can borrow money against stock holdings and pay a lower interest rate.

The super-rich can also avoid paying taxes by charitable donations, estate and gift exemptions, and defined benefits plans.

“The countries wealthiest, who profited immensely during the pandemic are not paying their fair share,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

There have been proposed solutions to making the rich pay a higher rate from Democrats. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York has proposed a 70% marginal tax rate on any income over $10 million, while Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has offered a plan for a 2% tax on income earned making over $50 million, and 3% on any assets over $1 billion. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has proposed an estate tax hike, as well as a wealth tax.