“The richest 1% of Americans dodge $175,000,000,000 in taxes every year. Fund the IRS and stop enabling the real looting in America. “
---former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich
This observation comes on the heels of a New York Times article in which it was revealed that Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg and Elon Musk “paid relatively little—and sometimes nothing—in federal income taxes from 2014 to 2018.”
Citing an article published in ProPublica, based upon leaked tax returns of the nation's 25 top executives, the Times noted that by using a complex set of loopholes and tax dodges, “the nation's richest executives paid just a fraction of their wealth in taxes—13.6 billion in federal income taxes during a time period when their collective net worth increased by 401 billion, according to a tabulation by Forbes”. (1) That's a federal tax rate of just 3.4 per cent.
How is this possible? One possible answer lies in a graph published yesterday of Facebook by former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich: (2)
As one can see, in the last decade the tax enforcement budget for the IRS has been cut by nearly a quarter. This caused cuts in personnel by over 30 per cent resulting of a 58 percent decline in overall audits with severe cuts in audits of large corporations and the wealthy. This is a major contributor to the dramatic increase in wealth by the top 1 percent and the bifurcation of America into two classes of Americans: the filthy rich and the emerging horde. It is also a major reason that one disgraced one-term 'president' could, with a straight face and with nearly assured impunity, submit tax returns in which he paid a mere 750.00 a year while 'serving' as the nation's 'president'.
Prosecute and Imprison.
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1. Rappaport, Alan. “Richest in U.s. Pay All but Nil In Income Tax” The New York Times.
Wednesday, June 9, 2021. Page A1, A11.
2. Reich, Robert. Facebook post July 7, 2021.
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