How Much Batman and Iron Man Would Pay in Taxes

Today is Tax Day and while many of us have put off filing until the last minute because income [...]

Today is Tax Day and while many of us have put off filing until the last minute because income taxes can be very confusing, it could always be worse. We could always have the tax headaches of two of our favorite billionaire superheroes: Iron Man and Batman.

Sure, there are a lot of reasons why Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne have it better than the rest of us. They're superheroes, they have tons of money, they have an endless supply of cool gadgets and cars -- what's not to envy? But all of those things have to be accounted for which is why, thanks to Syfy Wire, we get to take a hard look at just how lucky we are to not have their tax situation.

To do this calculation they used what Forbes estimated each man is worth based off of their holdings shown in the Dark Knight trilogy and the various MCU films. Bruce is valued at $9.2 billion while Tony is a little wealthier at $12.4 billion. From there, they dove into looking at the various write-offs after making their best guesses as to where each man calls home -- New Jersey for Bruce and California for Tony. With all that in place, it's time for the breakdown.

Both Tony and Bruce are single and therefore are taxed in the highest personal income tax bracket at 37-percent. The math gets pretty complicated -- we're not accountants, after all -- but it appears to shake down to Bruce owing between $500-$730 million federal and $1.7 million state with Tony owing between $375-400 million federal and $1.3 million state. Both of these sets of numbers are before write offs.

And what about those write offs? Tony could likely write off some of his company's technology because he's a public figure as Iron Man. He also has charity write offs as well. Bruce, on the other hand, can't really write off his Batman supplies because no one knows he's Batman, but he does have the Wayne Foundation that he can write things off for. There are also numerous other types of deductions the heroes' accountants probably will take off -- and we haven't even considered corporate taxes.

Did we mention we're not accountants?

Bottom line is this: if you're feeling bummed out about your own taxes this year, keep in mind it could always be worse. You could owe millions, making Tax Day the one and only time we can think of where the saying "always be yourself unless you can be Batman, then always be Batman" honestly doesn't apply. After all, what's the fun of being Batman if you have to pay the taxes?

Did you wait until today to file your taxes? Did you think Batman would have to pay that much? Let us know your thoughts in comments!

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