This article first appeared at ProPublica. It is reprinted here as part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1413516
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1413516
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“only the little people pay taxes”
-Leona Helmsley
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Once again, all together now, Fuck Joe Manchin.
(Though in this case a bunch of other people from both parties would surely step in if Joe were not around).
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Would love someone to run the numbers on the complete elimination of the Business Income Tax; no write offs, deductions, tax incentives, nothing. And then replace it with a VAT.
It would never pass, and I don’t know what the numbers are, but wish someone could crank those numbers out.
(Way beyond my skill level. But maybe I’ll give it a try.)
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You mean they just figured this out. The IRS goes after the little people. The rest are too complicated.
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If only my parents would have given me that pony I asked for I’m certain that I could have lived a life free of paying taxes through a multitude of tax breaks.
If only they’d realized this.
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The taxes on the rich are too low and the taxes on the middle class are too high.
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It’s not that we’re suckers. It’s that tax avoiders are unpatriotic opportunists whom Congress refuses to tax.
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I make a nice income, but I am a W-2 “sucker.” My effective tax rate, according to my TurboTax print out, is 12.8%, after I socked as much as allowed to my 401(k) for 2021 AND I owed just under $3K in taxes, sent today by mail. This is compared with the ultra-rich mentioned below. “Sucker?” Yes, I am.
And so this group, including the likes of Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett, paid federal income taxes of about 3.4% on the $400 billion, ProPublica reported. We called this the group’s “True Tax Rate.”
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It’s effectively how our “system” works. The well-off operate in a different world. You can see it in operation all the way down to traffic tickets. You can’t exactly blame the police for this, they know a well healed speeder can probably get out of the ticket, so why bother. Pretty much all activities that would be illegal for the “poors” can be conducted by the rich up to and including murder. Rich people may be punished for committing murder, but most can avoid incarceration, the uber rich can do it multiple times. I suppose there is one caveat to the murder issue, they need to make sure the person they kill isn’t of the same or similar economic status. Even rich people don’t want to see other rich people killed.
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I’m really not as pessimistic as that. But I tell black teenagers that when they get stopped by a cop not to resist. When I get stopped by a cop they think I’m their father.
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This is a new surprise?
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VAT is a sales tax. Sales taxes, for the most part, hit lower and middle incomes hardest.
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Is more difficult to avoid and can be made refundable.
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I’m not that pessimistic either. This is just 40+ years of observation. It wasn’t always thus, but it has been headed that way. So this is more a trend, but it may be the rule.
I used to watch a lone guy in a Bentley drive in the carpool lane every day at the start of rush hour. Occasionally the police would be at the side of the road and watch him drive by.
Then there’s been the rumor that Bill Gates had a Clyde Hill police officer fired for ticketing him. No one can prove it, but the police officer was fired.
I think your advice is probably good, but sadly is a tacit acknowledgement that there is a problem.
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This is Putin-and-his-oligarchs level of corruption, and gross inequality. Theoretically, it’s still a bug not a feature of a market economy for the Ds, but for the GOP it’s basically success. If the GOP gets its way and establishes a lock on minority rule, look for an invasion of Mexico before too long. You know, to stop the invasion of subhumans who are great-replacing/genociding “us.”
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If the rubes who stormed the Capitol want to transfer their anger to something real, here it is.
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Today’s special message from Hilton Head.
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No it’s not, it’s a profit tax. It applies at every level of the chain, and only on the difference between what a manufacturer or retailer bought materials at and what they sold them for (hence the VA part).
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Any way you look at it is a tax on purchases. Lower and middle class spend a much greater percent of their income trying to stay alive.
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