Jeff Bezos didn't cite taxes among the reasons for his recent move to Miami from the Seattle region, but the fiscal benefits of his relocation to the Sunshine State are becoming very obvious.
Leaving Washington state, which in 2022 introduced a 7% tax on capital gains, could have saved Bezos $288 million in taxes after he unloaded $4 billion of Amazon.com Inc. stock in the past week.
Bezos said in November that was he moving to Florida, which doesn't tax capital gains, from Seattle to be closer to his parents and the Cape Canaveral operations of his space-exploration company Blue Origin.
The announcement came a week before he put in place a 10(b)5-1 plan to sell as many as 50 million Amazon shares, worth potentially more than $8 billion.
The world's second-richest person has already flexed his presence in his new neighborhood. The Amazon founder has spent $147 million to buy two homes in Indian Creek, a man-made barrier island known as the "Billionaire Bunker," which he's expected to tear down and replace with custom builds.
But for the state Bezos left behind, it's potentially missing out on tax revenue that could have gone to education and school construction — the designated recipients of Washington's capital gains tax.
Spokespeople for Bezos and Amazon declined to comment on the stock sales.
It's not clear how much Washington was counting on its richest former resident.
The almost $900 million that the tax brought in last year on capital gains realized in 2022 blew past the state's estimates. More than half of that revenue came from just 10 people, according to state officials.
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Bezos's move demonstrates how hard it is for states to pin down the most valuable taxpayers, especially in a post-pandemic world where people and businesses are finding it easier to shift location within the U.S.
