Is there a patriotic duty to pay as much tax as possible? There seems to have been much political debate on this matter recently.
According to the Patriotic Millionaires group, who lobby to increase taxes on millionaires:
"The wealthy, who benefit the most from our country’s assets and institutions, should naturally and gladly pay the greatest share of whatever taxes are needed to support that investment".
However, no need to worry. This is the current status quo:
“Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands.” -Judge Learned Hand (Yes, that was his real name!), 1934
If anyone was in doubt, I would like to make clear that my default method of tax return preparation is to follow Judge Learned Hand's principles.
If you have a differing philosophy, please be sure to let me know before working on your return, so I can maximize your tax payments as much as possible.
It seems like he had reasons why it was worthwhile for him to pay a lot of tax on his stock sales, possibly he needed cash, or some other reason.
In his situation, he would owe a lot of tax.
Though he definitely isn't paying extra taxes for patriotic reasons.
This article speculates about his reasoning:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/16/taxes-arent-the-only-reason-elon-musk-is-selling-tesla-stock-.html
What do you say about Trump's taxes? Should he have paid them?