A new annual filing from Amazon, detailing Jeff Bezos’ plan to sell a slice of his stake, is shedding fresh light on his decision to move from Seattle to Miami — and his ability to avoid Washington state’s capital gains tax in the process.
The filing reveals that the Amazon founder and executive chairman adopted a trading plan on Nov. 8 of last year to sell up to 50 million shares during a period ending in January 2025. It would be his first Amazon stock sale since 2021.
The plan was adopted less than a week after Bezos announced on Instagram, on Nov. 2, that he was leaving his longtime home of Seattle for sunnier skies in Miami.
In his Instagram post, Bezos said he wanted to be closer to his parents and Blue Origin space venture in Florida. He did not mention taxes.
But given Bezos’ recent move out of Washington — where he founded and helped grow Amazon into a global behemoth — the Amazon founder will also be saving around $600 million in tax expense if he ends up selling 50 million shares, based on the company’s current stock price.
That’s around $600 million in what would have otherwise been tax revenue for his former home state, as The Center Square reported Monday.
The capital gains tax, passed in 2021, imposes a 7% tax on any gains of more than $250,000 from the sale of stocks and bonds, with some exceptions. It was challenged in court but ultimately ruled constitutional by the state Supreme Court last year. The tax brought in nearly $900 million in its first year of collection.
Advocates of the taxes say it’s a way that Washington’s regressive tax laws can be altered to help low-wage earners. Opponents warned that the capital gains tax would cause businesses to leave the region.
Florida, like Washington state, does not have an income tax. It also does not have a capital gains tax.
Bezos controlled about 12.3% of the company’s outstanding stock as of a February 2023 proxy filing, including shares he fully owns and shares owned by his ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, over which he still has voting rights. If he were to sell the maximum 50 million shares indicated by the filing, he would still control about 11.8% of the company’s stock, a decline of approximately half a percentage point.
He has used Amazon stock sales over the years to fund projects and initiatives including his Blue Origin space venture. A stock sale of 50 million shares would result in gross proceeds of more than $8.5 billion, at Amazon’s current share price. The company’s stock closed at more than $170 per share on Monday.
Jared Walczak, vice president of state projects at the think tank Tax Foundation, wrote in November that “a Washington state revenue official was probably moved to tears” with Bezos’ announcement that he was moving to Miami.
“And whether tax savings motivated his move or not, the implications for Washington are very real, and serve to illustrate just how dangerous it can be to design tax systems that rely so overwhelmingly on a very small number of taxpayers choosing to stay put,” Walczak wrote.
Washington Sen. Noel Frame, who sponsored a wealth tax proposal last year, told GeekWire in November that she doesn’t buy the narrative that wealthy people move to avoid paying high taxes, pointing to research that says otherwise.
Frame said economic competitiveness is not about tax policy but rather factors such as infrastructure investments or public education.
“We should tax wealth and reinvest those dollars in amenities that attract early stage entrepreneurs to our state, so they lay down roots here and raise their families and build their wealth,” Frame said. “That’s what the data tells us. And that’s exactly what [Bezos] did with Amazon.”
