The New York Times presents a “must-read,” sickening and astounding bit of reporting today under the banner headline:
For the Wealthiest, a Private Tax System That Saves Them Billions
The subhead reads:
The very richest are able to quietly shape tax policy that will allow them to shield billions in income.
The report is breathtaking in its detail of how the very wealthiest in this country have, over time, rigged the game in their favor through the use of lawyers, lobbyists and, most of all, money, to build loopholes and tax structures that limit the taxes they pay.
To most here, the fact that the wealthiest Americans have used their influence to further enrich themselves won’t come as news. But the level of detail in this reporting spells out exactly how they’ve done it over time:
With inequality at its highest levels in nearly a century and public debate rising over whether the government should respond to it through higher taxes on the wealthy, the very richest Americans have financed a sophisticated and astonishingly effective apparatus for shielding their fortunes. Some call it the “income defense industry,” consisting of a high-priced phalanx of lawyers, estate planners, lobbyists and anti-tax activists who exploit and defend a dizzying array of tax maneuvers, virtually none of them available to taxpayers of more modest means.
Like justice in this country, the “winners” are most often those with the most money:
Operating largely out of public view — in tax court, through arcane legislative provisions, and in private negotiations with the Internal Revenue Service — the wealthy have used their influence to steadily whittle away at the government’s ability to tax them. The effect has been to create a kind of private tax system, catering to only several thousand Americans.
…
Two decades ago, when Bill Clinton was elected president, the 400 highest-earning taxpayers in America paid nearly 27 percent of their income in federal taxes, according to I.R.S. data. By 2012, when President Obama was re-elected, that figure had fallen to less than 17 percent, which is just slightly more than the typical family making $100,000 annually, when payroll taxes are included for both groups.
Ah, and the GOP’s “Death Tax” framing rears its ugly head…
At the same time, most Republican candidates favor eliminating the inheritance tax, a move that would allow the new rich, and the old, to bequeath their fortunes intact, solidifying the wealth gap far into the future.
The report goes into great detail on the convoluted nature of these tax avoidance schemes and notes:
Each of the top 400 earners took home, on average, about $336 million in 2012, the latest year for which data is available. If the bulk of that money had been paid out as salary or wages, as it is for the typical American, the tax obligations of those wealthy taxpayers could have more than doubled.
Go read the article. The income gap has become an income chasm. It is likely to continue to grow because money begets money.
Tax policy should be at the very center of the debate for the presidency, regardless of what happens in the House and Senate.
Maybe we do, indeed, need a revolution...