Jeff Bezos’s Unofficial Tax Proposal Would Eliminate Taxes for Lower Earners

Billionaire Jeff Bezos gets a lot of heat for how wealthy he is and how he flaunts it. But to be fair, he did build Amazon from the ground up and stayed committed to the company even when it nearly collapsed during the dot-com crash in the early 2000s.

And he managed to do all this despite his dad coming to America as a Cuban immigrant speaking no English, and his mom giving birth to Jeff when she was just 17 years old, he revealed in a May 2026 interview with CNBC's Squawk Box.

Love him or hate him, Jeff knows a thing or two about making money. And he seems to have a way for the bottom half of taxpayers (aka the lower earners) to hold on to more of their money through an unofficial tax proposal. It’s a good one, so keep reading for the details.

During a May 2026 sit-down with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on Squawk Box, Jeff Bezos discussed a way he thinks could help lower earners keep more money in their pockets, because these days, every dollar counts.

He shared the details of an unofficial tax proposal, since that’s where it stands as of this writing, that would allow the lower half of earners to pay no federal income taxes. In other words, zero tax on their earnings.

“We can give them a better chance by eliminating their tax bill. I don't want to reduce it, I want to eliminate it, there’s something very powerful about zero. Zero is a better number than $1. Zero is a good number,” Bezos explained.

He continued, “If people are starting out and they're struggling, stop taxing them, we don’t need it.” He then gave some insight into where the U.S. stands economically, saying, “We live in the wealthiest country in the world, America is the greatest country in the world, we have more entrepreneurial dynamism here than anywhere else in the world.”

He went on to say this is the best time to be in America right now and that access to capital is available, directing that message mostly toward entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs.

But why would a wealthy billionaire want to help lower working-class earners so much? As mentioned earlier, it may tie back to his parents. Jeff has opened up about his understanding of what it’s like for struggling families and how hard it is to build a successful company.

He believes eliminating taxes for lower earners wouldn’t just help people keep more money in their pockets, but it would also make a big impact on how much the U.S. collects in tax revenue.

Because, according to Bezos, the top taxpayers account for around 40 percent of tax revenue, while the bottom half pay only about 3 percent. Essentially, what he’s saying is that his “proposal” would help people more than it would hurt the economic system, and even give them more financial freedom and opportunity.

“I want to make sure the people who are struggling today have a chance to bring themselves up to… maybe they’ll be the next Steve Jobs,” he told Sorkin.

Bezos hasn’t pitched his income tax idea to Trump as of this writing, but he did tell Sorkin he’d be open to advocating for it.

“I’m certainly going to advocate for this because this one would actually help people,” Bezos told Sorkin.