How Much Will Mark Cuban's Taxes Help The US Government

Proud patriot Mark Cuban disclosed the heavy tax bill he received for 2023, publishing the nine-figure metric to X. In the process of doing so, he also took a shot at former President Donald Trump.

"I pay what I owe. Tomorrow, I will wire transfer to the IRS $288,000,000.00," Cuban wrote on the social media site on Sunday before amending the actual figure to $275,900,000 in a follow-up post.

"This country has done so much for me; I'm proud to pay my taxes every single year. Tag a former president that you know doesn't," Cuban added, in a seeming dig at Trump, who declined to share his tax returns while running for office and during his four-year term.

Current President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden disclosed their tax returns on Monday, revealing their earnings of $620,000 in 2023.

The average federal income tax payment among Americans was around $16,615, a stark difference to the amount Mark Cuban shelled out.

Here is how the US Government could go about spending Cuban’s millions. 

Fund the NTSB

The National Transportation Safety Board is an independent US government agency that oversees civil transportation traffic accident investigations. The agency secured $145 million in funding for 2024, a $15.7 million increase from the previous budget year. 

Mark Cuban’s $275.9 million contribution could cover the agency's full budget, with nearly half still left over.

Lawmakers’ Salaries 

Representatives and senators don’t make nearly as much as Mark Cuban, but multiply the average salary of $174,000 by all the members in Congress, which is 535 total members, and you get $93 million. 

The leftover millions from Cuban’s contributions could easily cover the congressional paychecks and even President Joe Biden's $400,000 salary and Vice President Kamala Harris' $235,100 salary.

Talk about what being a billion actually means.

Fund the DOD

Here is where things get tricky.

Going in a different direction, the Department of Defence requested a whopping $850 billion for 2025, up from the requested $841.4 billion in 2024.

If you divide $850 billion by 365 days in the year, you get a $2,328,767,123.29 department cost per day. Divide that number by 24 hours, and you get $97,031,963.47 per hour. 

So Cuban’s $275.9 million wouldn’t be enough to cover just three-hour DOD costs at $291,095,890.41. But his taxes could fund the US war machine for a little over two hours.

Take a chunk out of the US Debt

The US debt increases by almost $1 trillion nearly every 100 days. With the current national debt sitting at $34 trillion as of April 2023, the $275.9 would not even make a nano-sized dent into that astronomical number. 

In total Cuban would be able to repay about 0.0811% of the US national debt. 

Not much of an impact, as the US national debt would surpass the previous number within in 27.59 days, which is less than a month.