@mattinpa “What I can’t quite discern is if they (ProPublica) makes content available to other venues, like a wire service does. It would be hugely helpful.” The link below answers that:
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That Op-Ed was in the LA Times earlier this week. I am old enough to remember Newton Minnow,
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People don’t miss what they never see. The gifts for the high end are not something 99.999% of the country ever see.
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I’m howling.
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Well, he’s smart enough to cash a check.
Which doesn’t actually take much.
But it does set up one of my favorite old “Ole and Lena” jokes:
So Ole got a job at the mill. At the end of the week, payday, the foreman hands Ole a check. Now, this is the first time Ole had held down a job where he got a paycheck instead of just cash in his pay envelope, so he looked at it and said, “what’s this, how do I get my money?”
The foreman said, “you take it to the bank, Ole, and cash it. They’ll give you your money.” So Ole, not feeling too confident about any of this, heads downtown to the bank. Walks up to the teller window, puts down his paycheck, and says “I want my money.”
The teller flips the check over and points to the line for endorsements, and says “okay Ole, just sign here and I’ll give you your money.” Ole, looking pinched and suspicious, says “I ain’t signin’ nothing. You bankers are all crooks, I’ll bet you want to trick me.” The teller says, “Ole, if you don’t endorse the check, I can’t cash it.” But after a few rounds of this, Ole says “fine, I’m gonna take my business to the other bank.”
So Ole walks out of the one bank, crosses the street, and walks into the other bank in town. Shows the check to the window and says “I want my money.” The banker says, “okay, Ole, just sign here…” and of course Ole again says “I ain’t signin’ nothing.”
So the bank teller reaches across the counter, grabs Ole by both of his big ears, and pounds his head on the counter, WHAM WHAM WHAM. Ole signs the check and the teller counts out his pay.
Just as Ole is leaving, he encounters the first bank teller who’s on his way to his lunch break. “So, Ole,” he asks, “didja get your money?” Ole answers, “ya, dey got a better way of explainin’ things at that other bank.”
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Only poor people pay taxes.
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Another 2 Democratic senators.
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This twice-tossed Johnnie shall attempt to hold his tongue. {snickers}
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The worst part of Trump’s tax shift, as I will explain latter, was making “unearned” or
“passive” or “pass through” income more valuable than earned income or income from employment. These tax changes both incentivize greed and increase inequality and wealth hording.
But before getting to that, what this article fails to mention is the relationship between the 1986 TRA and Trump’s tax shift, twice as many Americans received a tax increase of $4,000 or more than a received a tax break of $4,000 or more so it is wrong to call it a tax cut.
Prior to the 1986 TRA, C Corps were the favorite son of the tax code. The reason for the tax advantage of C Corps is that they historically were the best way for long-term investment in the economy. That is C Corps paid a much lower marginal tax rate than individuals especially at the high end. Marginal rates are the rates individuals and corporations pay on the next $1.00 of income.
The reason for these low C Corp taxes was because corporate profits were taxed twice, when earned by corporations and then again when distributed to stockholders through dividends which are taxed at the individual stockholder’s marginal tax rate. Therefore C Corps and stockholders had incentive to leave money in C Corps for tax avoidance purposes allowing C Corps to continue investing in the economy. However, this is only part of the story.
When a person inherits property to include stock, their tax basis for determining gains is at market value on the date of inheritance. What this mean is that if a decedent bought stock in a start up company for a $1.00 and that stock is now worth $1,000.00, the inheritor pays no taxes on the $999.00 gain. Hence the need for an inheritance tax on large estates, but that is another matter.
These tax advantages, combined with other advantages of a C Corp. to include limited liability and perpetual life, made C Corps the dominant form of business in America.
This all changed in the 1986 TRA that while cutting marginal tax rates for high individual income earners greatly raised corporate taxes to the extent that C Corps changed from being the favorite son to the step child of the tax code. This happened because corporate managers, who run but do not own the largest C Corps like GM and most energy companies, threw the weight of C Corps behind these proposals because, while shafting the business they run, cut these corporate managers personal tax rates significantly.
As a result of these changes in the tax code that screwed over C Corps, most small and many medium business that were C Corps changed their structures to “pass through entities” like S Corps and a new business form at the time, a Limited Liability Company (LLC) which enjoy many of the benefits of a C Corp, limited liability for example. Again, “pass through entities” do not pay taxes. Rather, individuals pay taxes on their share of the profits every year hence single taxation to include any retained earnings at individual rates whereas a C Corps only pay the corporate rate on any retained earnings.
Now in the view of this corporate lawyer and CPA, and a view shared by many Republicans and Democrats including Barack Obama, what the 1986 TRA did to the economy was terrible as evidenced by America’s low savings and investment rate. That is by putting the highest tax rates on the most efficient vehicle for investment in the American economy, investment in the economy fell significantly after 1986. As any economist will tell you, savings and investment are linked and hence America’s pitiful savings rate since the 1986 TRA.
Now as originally proposed, what became Trump’s tax shift would have reversed America’s tax structure back to before the 1986 TRA. Enter Republicans like Ron Johnson.
Thanks to Johnson, instead of correcting or reversing the sins of the 1986 TRA, Trump’s tax shift made them worse. That is instead of using the tax code as it was prior to the 1986 TRA to encourage investments in C Corps, Trump’s tax shift made all “pass through” or “unearned” income more valuable because it is now taxed at a much lower tax rate then income earned through working for a living. Now, if you own a business, pay yourself as small a wage as possible and instead increase residual profits as they pass through to you and are taxed at a much lower tax rate than wages.
Furthermore, as “pass through entities” pay the same rate as C Corps except that with C Corps profits are taxed twice, there is still considerable disincentive to invest in C Corps and instead the incentive of the tax code is to get as much money as quickly as possible without regard to the investment and savings.
Therefore what Trump’s tax shift did was provide huge tax savings to the richest taxpayers, many of them NOT Americans as many business of all forms including LLCs and S Corps are owned by not Americans, at the expense of hard working employed Americans. Furthermore, it incentivized greed as all tax cuts for billionaires do by making greed pay. That is back in the 1950s when the highest marginal tax rate was 90%, a person choosing to pay a worker a $1.00 or keeping the money for himself, was really choosing between paying and employee a $1.00 and keeping $.10. After Reagan tax cuts that choice became closer to 1 to 1 causing those making the decision to pay workers less and keep more for themselves. Now, under current tax law after Trump’s tax shift, the choice is now between paying, after taxes, an employee $.65 and keeping $.75 further incentivizing greed and increasing inequality.
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How on Earth did this story fail to note that each and every one of the 200 or so entities collectively referred to as the Trump Organization is a pass-through entity?
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Great article. Too bad dems need to develop a bumper sticker version for it to gain real traction.
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I’ve been aware of them for some time - at least since the W years.
They team up with Frontline once in a while for investigative journalism in a non-print format.
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I did see that, and that’s nice, but I’m curious why you seemingly can’t subscribe to the service and run their stuff where it might be relevant. Again, it would answer a need. But I’m sure there are reasons they do it this way.
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I thought they were a stand-alone until TPM started carrying their articles. They are apparently the thinking person’s AP.
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Oh, my. The suffering. Why, those poor boys haven’t any cushioning between them and the unforgiving fiberglass of that foredeck. The steward’s pay needs to be docked, immediately.
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Still needs a new wig for his head .
They have all kinds of tax returns from lots of very rich people - but they do not have Trumps?
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A spokesperson for the Uihleins declined to comment. Representatives for Hendricks didn’t respond to questions.
Exactly. None of the ‘families’ or ‘individuals’ have a fucking clue about the tax code. Imagine if you could have a full staff to live your life and make everything better, even your own personal Congresscritter? Bootstraps my ass.
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