I understand what you're saying about Bezos' tax rate being 23% when looking at the income he reported, but the point of the article is that considering his wealth increased by an estimated $99 billion (far more than the $4.22 billion he reported as income), there is a point to be made that the REAL taxes he paid were actually less than 1 percent.

What should be counted as income is a matter of debate, of course, but fact is that people like Bezos are amassing enormous wealth that isn't taxed at all, while ordinary people are taxed on every thing they make. That's not right no matter how you look at it.

For example, In 2018 the 25 richest Americans were worth $1.1 trillion, roughly the equivalent wealth of 14.3 million ordinary American wage earners. But although the collective tax bill for the wage earners was $143 billion, the personal federal tax bill for the top 25 was only $1.9 billion.

It's not about what the government would do with the money — they're taking our money too, after all — it's about fairness.