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taxation
Palantir: Surveillance State Profiteer Making Billions in Profits, But With an Effective US Tax Rate of... Zero
"The likes of Palantir need to stump up what's due," said one expert. "Tech giants raking off billions in profit can’t be free to pay what they please."
Aug 06, 2026
Palantir Technologies, one of the world's most influential—and controversial—surveillance tech companies, enjoyed an effective tax rate of just 1.4% globally last year while paying no US federal income tax despite recording substantial profits, an analysis released on Wednesday revealed.
The study, Who Pays for the Surveillance State?, was written by the Center for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research (CICTAR) in partnership with the European Federation of Public Services Unions. The report "examines how Palantir is capturing ever-larger government contracts while paying no US federal corporate income tax and shifting much of its foreign profits back to the US, avoiding taxes in Europe."
"In 2025 the company reported $1.657 billion in pre-tax profit, booked $22.7 million [in] corporate tax paid globally, and paid $0 in US federal income tax, resulting in an effective tax rate of just 1.4% globally," CICTAR found.
"The report's core claim of profit-shifting is based on the gap between revenue and profit location: 26% of Palantir's revenue came from outside the US, but 96% of pre-tax profit was booked in the US," the analysis states.
"The Trump administration has not only been granting record amounts in new contracts to Palantir but is running a global protection racket to help it—along with larger US tech giants—avoid paying tax both in the US and globally," the report contends.
"In Europe, the report finds a pattern of subsidiaries providing services to the US parent on cost-plus terms, leaving low taxable margins locally while related-party payments move value back to the US," CICTAR added.
Palantir maintains that it complies with applicable tax laws in every jurisdiction where it operates. Company representatives have said that transfer pricing arrangements and other accounting practices cited by critics are standard among multinational corporations and comply with existing regulations.
The Palo Alto, California-based company's soaring revenues are partly driven by government contracts, with the US Department of Defense being the data analytics specialist's biggest client. Palantir is also integral to the Trump administration's deadly anti-immigrant crackdown, selling technology used by Department of Homeland Security agencies—including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—to identify, track, and target people for arrest and deportation and manage their cases.
Palantir has also drawn scrutiny from Democratic US lawmakers, including Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who demanded answers following reporting last year that the company was "amassing troves of data on Americans to create a government-wide, searchable ‘mega-database’ containing the sensitive taxpayer data of American citizens.”
Palestine defenders have also denounced Palantir and other tech giants for selling technology to the Israeli government and military despite findings by rights groups, scholars, national governments, and a United Nations commission of inquiry that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Alex Karp, the billionaire co-founder and CEO of Palantir, told CNBC last month: “I am the most publicly supportive CEO of Israel. I think Israel is on the side of good.”
In Europe, advocacy groups have raised concerns about Palantir's contracts involving sensitive medical records, immigration systems, and predictive analytics. Campaigners argue that centralized data platforms create attractive targets for misuse, unauthorized access, or mission creep beyond their original purposes.
CICTAR's report concludes that "European public authorities should be able to exclude companies that take public money while shifting profits away from the national tax base that funds public services, and provide the basis for national security that Palantir claims to defend."
Responding to the report, Andrea Egan, general secretary of UNISON, the largest trade union in the United Kingdom, said that "a big multinational aggressively avoiding tax and dodging its responsibility to pay a fair share is probably no surprise. But the fact the UK and other countries are rewarding Palantir with massive government contracts is what beggars belief."
“Systems that enable tax to be shirked on an industrial scale clearly have to change," she added. "The likes of Palantir need to stump up what's due. Tech giants raking off billions in profit can’t be free to pay what they please. Ministers shouldn’t award contracts to run public services to firms that are starving them of cash.”
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By 60-Point Margin, Missouri Voters Reject GOP Push to Make Ballot Measures Harder to Pass
Voters also rejected an amendment that would have gradually eliminated the state’s income tax in what one Democratic mayor said would benefit the wealthy "while raising costs on hardworking families."
Aug 05, 2026
The Democratic mayor of Kansas City, Missouri was among those celebrating what he called the "TOTAL repudiation by Missouri voter of a core agenda of state GOP leadership" on Tuesday night after the state voted by a 60-point margin against Amendment 4, a measure backed by the Republican governor which would have weakened voters' ability to pass citizen-sponsored ballot initiatives.
"We took over control of the state of Missouri tonight, repudiating absolutely atrocious ideas," Mayor Quinton Lucas said in a video message addressing voters as election results came in. "Against millions of dollars, lots of special interests, Missouri voters are trouncing Amendment 4, which was going to take away our initiative petition rights, eliminate our ability to make sure we can get things done."
The Republican supermajority in the state Legislature and Gov. Mike Kehoe supported Amendment 4, which was spurred by the passage of a ballot initiative in 2024 that had added the right to abortion care to the Missouri Constitution.
The addition of the amendment to the constitution would have required a majority vote in each of the state's eight congressional districts in order to pass any future citizen-sponsored amendments, instead of a simply majority of voters across the state.
With more than 95% of votes counted on Wednesday morning, 80.3% of voters had rejected Amendment 4, while 19.7% had supported it.
The amendment would have created the highest threshold in the country for passing ballot initiatives like others that Missourians have passed in recent years, including ones that have legalized marijuana, raised the minimum wage, and expanding Medicaid coverage.
Opponents warned that under Amendment 4, an initiative could fail to pass even with as many as 95% of voters across the state supporting it.
The St. Louis American reported that the election result could signal voters' coming rejection of Amendment 3 in November, which would ban abortion in Missouri in most cases.
The state GOP suffered a similar defeat for Amendment 5, which would have gradually eliminated the state's income tax and replaced it with expanded sales and use taxes. Opponents warned the new tax scheme would have cost working families and lower-income Missourians more, with the average resident paying $500 more in taxes annually, according to the nonpartisan Missouri Budget Project—as high-income residents would have been required to contribute less to public spending.
“Tonight’s rejection of Amendment 5 is not only an immense failure for statewide leadership, but also a sign to out-of-state billionaire special interests that Missourians and most Americans have no interest in voodoo tax schemes that would spare civic responsibility for a few elites while raising costs on hardworking families in our state and our country,” Lucas said Tuesday night.
Mark Jones of the Missouri National Education Association—part of a broad coalition that opposed the amendment—told the Missouri Independent that "fundamentally, Missourians rejected the idea that they should pay for tax breaks for billionaires and then not be able to change to correct the legislature, not only on this issue but forever."
The Independent reported that Missouri Promise political action committee (PAC), which did not report any contributions from individual donors, raised $17.2 million in favor of Amendment 5. Opponents of Amendment 5 were outspent 4-to-1 on broadcast ads.
Another PAC, Protect Election Integrity, raised $132,100 and spent $28,653 through July 23 in support of Amendment 4. Freedom Principle Missouri/Missouri First PAC, also reported spending $45,551 in support of the measure.
State House Minority Leader Ashley Aune (D-14) said Missouri voters had "made clear they won’t let Republicans rewrite the rules to protect their own power and line the pockets of the ultrawealthy."
Referring to the abortion rights amendment that will be up for a vote in the general election, Aune added, "In November, voters have the chance to send another powerful message to Jefferson City Republicans: If you mess with Missourians’ rights, you will pay the political price.”
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Noting ‘Trillions Within Reach,’ Campaigners Demand Justice at UN's Global Tax Treaty Talks
A Greenpeace representative urged governments to recognize the "once-in-a-generation opportunity to make those most responsible for the climate, nature, and inequality crises we are facing pay their share.”
Aug 04, 2026
As world governments meet at the United Nations for another round of negotiations on a first-of-its-kind "Global Tax Treaty," economic justice campaigners are urging them to think big or risk leaving on the table trillions of dollars that could help alleviate global inequality and the climate crisis.
The fifth round of negotiations for the treaty began in New York on Monday, with countries ironing out its language line by line as they seek a global framework to more fairly tax the rich and multinational corporations and crack down on tax avoidance.
Jenny Ricks, the general secretary of the Fight Inequality Alliance—a global coalition of anti-inequality groups—said the framework, which was first conceived in 2022 at the urging of poorer nations in Africa, "aims to make global tax governance more inclusive, transparent, and equitable, shifting it away from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and giving the global majority a genuine say in rules that have long been set by wealthy states."
The first drafts of the proposed tax convention were released in late July in advance of this month's negotiations. Advocates at Greenpeace International, however, argue that they contain many gaps that fail to adequately tax fossil fuel companies driving the climate crisis or other multinational corporations and extremely wealthy individuals.
In a briefing document released to media organizations, Greenpeace argued that the text lacks clear language linking taxation to sustainable development, despite it being demanded by 24 countries, and that it lacks provisions requiring polluters to bear the public cost of environmental damage.
The group also criticized the weakening of an article covering taxes on high-net-worth individuals, the lack of a minimum tax on multinational profits, and the absence of specific rules for taxing extractive industries such as oil, gas, and mining.
The oil and gas industry, the group pointed out, is in the midst of a boom, with companies reporting record profits as President Donald Trump's war against Iran drives global oil prices higher.
"The money is right there," said Nina Stros, Greenpeace International's global senior policy expert. "It is about time governments recognized this once-in-a-generation opportunity to make those most responsible for the climate, nature, and inequality crises we are facing pay their share, and reclaim trillions of dollars to invest in our shared future.”
An open letter from Tax and Fiscal Justice Asia, a group of over 50 civil society organizations across 13 Asian countries, emphasized many of the same concerns that the conference could end up merely affirming broad principles without creating concrete rules.
They said representatives of Asian nations at the negotiating table needed to push for a shift in taxing power away from wealthy countries where corporate headquarters are located and toward poorer ones where much of the workforce and resources are concentrated. They also argued for a move away from regressive consumption taxes that disproportionately fall on lower-income people.
"The majority of states in Asia were among the 125 states that voted in November 2023 to adopt a resolution for a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation (UNFCITC)," the letter said. "The vote has brought forth a historic opportunity to leave behind unjust systems and build a new global tax architecture."
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Taxes Need a Rebrand
Too often, tax is framed as a burden instead of a form of shared investment and discussed as a technical obligation rather than the foundation that allows modern societies to function.
Aug 01, 2026
Few issues matter more to the future of societies than how we fund the systems we all depend on. Yet tax remains one of the most misunderstood and poorly communicated public issues of our time.
For many people, taxation is associated with complexity, bureaucracy, and cost. Public debate often centers on what individuals or businesses are required to give up, rather than what those contributions make possible.
That is the problem. Tax's biggest challenge isn't policy. It's a narrative challenge that every society faces, whether in the United States, Argentina, Botswana, Thailand, or anywhere in between.
Too often, tax is framed as a burden instead of a form of shared investment. It is discussed as a technical obligation rather than the foundation that allows modern societies to function. Schools, healthcare systems, transportation networks, courts, emergency services, climate resilience measures, and public safety systems do not emerge on their own. They depend on sustained and predictable collective investment, and taxation remains the primary way societies make that investment possible.
When people can see what their taxes make possible, tax becomes more than a cost. It becomes part of the social contract that helps communities function and thrive.
Seen this way, tax justice is not only about rates, revenue, or technical reforms. It is about whether societies have the resources required to deliver opportunity, security, and resilience in a consistent and equitable way.
Most people do not experience taxation through fiscal policy debates. They experience it through outcomes. They see whether schools are adequately resourced, healthcare is accessible, roads and infrastructure work, and governments can respond effectively to economic shocks, climate risks, and public emergencies.
That means the conversation should not begin with forms, rates, or technical policy language. It should begin with a more immediate and universal question: What do we want to contribute to make our world better, and how should we fund it? Do we want to reduce cancer rates, prepare communities for extreme weather, ensure every child receives a quality education, keep bridges and roads safe, breathe clean air and drink clean water, and build healthcare systems that can care for people as they age without placing the full burden on the next generation?
But changing the narrative around tax also requires rebuilding trust. People are more likely to see taxation as a shared investment when they understand where public money goes, how decisions are made, and how those investments improve daily life. For example, an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report examining public perceptions of tax systems across 29 countries found that in two-thirds of countries surveyed in Asia and the Anglophone Pacific, more respondents agreed than disagreed that public services and infrastructure represent a fair return for their taxes, compared with 30% of countries surveyed in Western Europe and Latin America. This shows that when people can see what their taxes make possible, tax becomes more than a cost. It becomes part of the social contract that helps communities function and thrive.
Federal, regional, and local governments have a responsibility to build that trust, but the scale and complexity of public institutions can make the connection between taxation and public benefit difficult for people to see. This is where philanthropy can play an important supporting role, not by replacing government, but by strengthening the civic infrastructure that helps people understand, scrutinize, and participate in tax debates.
Philanthropy can fund civil society organizations working on tax transparency, accountability, and fairness. It can support independent research that shows how tax policy affects communities, journalism that follows public money, watchdog groups that hold institutions accountable, and civic engagement efforts that help people connect tax decisions to the schools, hospitals, housing, roads, climate protections, and care systems they rely on every day.
In that sense, philanthropy can help rebuild the bridge between contribution and trust. It can make tax feel less like an obligation and more like part of a shared public conversation about what societies need, what people value, and how those priorities should be funded. Philanthropy can also take risks, support innovation, and surface ideas that may later scale through public systems. Taxation provides the foundation. Philanthropy can help strengthen and extend it.
This matters not only for governments and philanthropy today, but for the next generation of wealth holders, donors, advisers, and civic leaders who will shape how contribution is understood in the years ahead. As the world undergoes one of the largest transfers of wealth in modern history, tens of trillions of dollars will move between generations. Those shifts will influence not only private wealth, but also the ability of societies to invest in their collective future.
That makes wealth stewardship an increasingly important conversation. Investment decisions, advisory practices, philanthropic strategies, and family office decisions all influence how wealth is deployed and how contribution itself is understood. These systems help set norms around responsibility, participation, and the relationship between private wealth and public life.
Rebranding tax does not mean making it simple or pretending it is painless. It means making visible what tax makes possible. It means connecting contribution to the public goods people rely on every day. And it means building a shared understanding that a better world is not funded by good intentions alone, but by the choices societies make together.
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Trillionaires Are Only Possible Because They Don't Pay Taxes Like Ordinary People
Without endless tax deferrals, they would have only a tiny fraction of what they own today, yet, as things stand, nothing stops them from wielding the power and influence their wealth buys to benefit themselves.
Jul 31, 2026
The valuation trends up and down, but one thing’s for sure: Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire this summer. At the height of the SpaceX IPO he was briefly worth around $1.45 trillion.
Then SpaceX stock tanked, rallied, then tanked again. But the most important thing about Musk’s wealth isn’t whether it stays above the 13-figure threshold—it’s that 94% of it comes from not having to pay taxes on unrealized gains.
That’s right: Musk’s fortune effectively comes from not paying taxes.
It’s no exaggeration to say that trillionaires (Musk likely won’t be the last) are creatures of the tax code. They ought to be called “taxillionaires.” If it weren’t for laws that permit the wealthy to endlessly defer paying taxes by keeping their gains unrealized, there would be no trillionaires—and many fewer billionaires.
We should end the practice of funding billionaires’ and trillionaires’ accumulation of power at public expense by letting them amass yet larger fortunes without paying taxes.
According to Musk’s own account, when he sold his stake in Paypal in 2002, he netted $180 million, invested it all in SpaceX and Tesla, and borrowed to pay his living expenses. To get from $180 million to a trillion today implies annual returns of over 40% (returns that would be considered impossible for ordinary investors).
Allowing these returns to compound untaxed supercharges growth.
Musk paid some taxes along the way, when he exercised stock options or sold some Tesla shares, but any taxes he paid are insignificant compared to his wealth. By contrast, for most working Americans earning a good salary, total state and federal taxes are significant—typically around 40%.
They can put limited amounts in tax-deferred IRAs, 401(k) plans, and the like. But most of their savings comes from net paychecks after withholding for federal, state, local, Social Security, unemployment, and Medicare taxes. Musk is effectively exempt from these taxes.
But he doesn’t have to be.
Suppose he were subject to the same taxes on his annual wealth increase that most higher-earning Americans pay on what they make, and had to sell some Tesla and SpaceX shares to pay those taxes. We crunched the numbers based on the latest figures, and found he’d be worth around $47 billion today—rich enough to afford the most lavish lifestyle imaginable, but not a trillionaire, and not richer than the GDP of most countries.
It’s the same story for Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, and other multibillionaires.
The vast bulk of their fortunes came from not paying taxes on their wealth as it grew. Without endless tax deferrals, they would have only a tiny fraction of what they own today (although that tiny fraction would still be a huge amount of money). Yet as things stand today, nothing stops them from wielding the power and influence their wealth buys to benefit themselves.
In the 2024 elections, Musk was the largest campaign donor, giving $291 million. That’s chump change for him, but it bought unprecedented power: lucrative contracts, the suspension of investigations of Musk’s businesses, access to government data, and the authority to dismantle government programs—including disruptions to foreign aid which are projected to result in over 14 million people dying from preventable diseases.
It’s a vicious cycle of wealth begetting power which begets more wealth, diverting it from the needy and vulnerable. We’re in the grip of unprecedented power accumulated by private, super-rich individuals.
We can check their power by fixing the untaxed wealth problem. We should end the practice of funding billionaires’ and trillionaires’ accumulation of power at public expense by letting them amass yet larger fortunes without paying taxes. We should adopt sensible policies requiring them to pay their fair share, such as the Billionaires Minimum Income Tax Act introduced in Congress in 2023.
Over the next decade, we will face crisis-level national debt and unmet needs for healthcare and retirement income. That will force us to decide whether to leave the vast pool of billionaire and trillionaire wealth untouched, or tax them like the rest of us to curb their influence and address public needs. The choice is ours.
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No, Friends on the Left, We Shouldn’t Tax Hardworking Americans Into Poverty
Many of those who would adamantly oppose the creation of a society where the income tax impoverishes struggling workers to enable those with seven-figure incomes to pay low rates are working overtime to maintain that very same situation.
Jul 22, 2026
Imagine this 2029 scenario: Americans making $1,000,001 or more per year have a slightly higher federal income tax rate than they currently do, while Americans who can’t afford to put food on the table—the ones who make less than what it takes to cover basic living expenses—don’t pay federal income taxes at all. Now imagine that President JD Vance proposes to cut the income tax rates of those with incomes over $1 million and to recover the lost revenue by taxing the working poor even further into poverty.
How many Democratic politicians would vote for that? How many left-leaning think tanks would write white papers supporting it? And how many left-leaning activist groups would lobby in support of it? NONE.
Unfortunately, the very tax structure that hypothetical proposal envisions already exists. Yet, amazingly, many of those who would adamantly oppose the creation of a society where the income tax impoverishes struggling workers to enable those with seven-figure incomes to pay low rates are working overtime to maintain that very same situation.
Recognizing that taxing hardworking people into poverty is both morally wrong and economically asinine, earlier this year, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) introduced the Working Americans’ Tax Cut Act (WATCA). Twenty-one senators and 13 representatives have signed on. The AFL-CIO has endorsed WATCA, as have the American Federation of Teachers, Oxfam, Americans for Tax Fairness, Take on Wall Street, and nearly a dozen other tax and justice organizations.
WATCA is based on the simple concept that workers with incomes equal to or less than the basic cost of living should not be required to divert income needed for basic necessities to pay federal income tax. WATCA provides an exemption from federal income tax for income up to the basic cost of living, $46,000 per year for a single American with no children, and recovers the lost tax revenue with a surtax on incomes over $1 million.
Criticism of WATCA has been fast and furious, coming mostly from folks who purport to advocate for average Americans. Their commentary, which can be found in American Prospect, Democracy, The New York Times, and even Rolling Stone, is chock-full of concocted reasons why continuing to oppressively tax struggling Americans is a fine idea. Mostly, their arguments are a repackaged version of billionaire Republican Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-Fla.) idea that he pushed in 2022 that the income tax requires all Americans to have “skin in the game.” Scott’s idea bombed badly—so badly, in fact, that he shelved it after just a few months.
The Working Americans’ Tax Cut Act fixes a fundamental structural flaw in the federal income tax: We’re taxing those with no ability to pay into poverty, while maintaining top rates that are absurdly low.
The words used by WATCA critics differ, although often not by very much, but the concept is the same. A Roosevelt Institute blog post explains how tax policy should “bind us all to one another.” In an impressive mental gymnastics routine, former Larry Summers acolyte Natasha Sarin acknowledges that ordinary Americans are “right to resent a tax system that’s skewed against them,” but that making those at the top pay their fair share would not be enough, so it’s the civic duty of everyone, no matter their level of income, to pay federal income tax. In Democracy, writers from the Tax Law Center at NYU Law, including two Obama and Biden administration alums, somehow manage to start by recognizing that the income tax "embodies the principle that the government should be financed based on ability to pay” yet end by attacking a proposal based on its recognition of the inability of those with income below the basic cost of living—or income below any threshold for that matter—to pay income tax.
You can’t top the tone-deafness of a billionaire Republican senator insisting that all Americans pay income tax to have “skin in the game.” But you know what comes close? A group of ivory-tower policy wonks ensconced in air-conditioned offices and drawing comfortable six-figure salaries insisting that exempting janitors making $40,000 a year from federal income tax would be a tragic policy mistake. No, they don’t use the phrase “skin in the game,” but they may as well.
And let’s be clear, all Americans have a lot of skin in the tax game whether or not they pay federal income tax. In fact, if Social Security and Medicare taxes were labeled to reflect what they actually are—income taxes—all but the lowest income Americans would be considered to be paying federal income tax.
Other attacks on the Working Americans’ Tax Cut Act are equally off base. The second favored theme is to mischaracterize WATCA as a middle-class tax cut. That attack line seizes on the reality that it’s never possible to craft a tax bill that precisely addresses its underlying policy objective. Exempting income up to the basic cost of living from income tax unavoidably confers an incidental benefit on those with incomes at a slightly higher level, a benefit that is rapidly phased out under WATCA.
So, yes, Americans with incomes considered middle class stand to benefit from WATCA. The benefit, however, becomes vanishingly smaller as income increases into middle-class range. But that didn’t stop former Biden National Economic Council member Bharat Ramamurti from referring to WATCA as a “very sweeping middle-class tax cut” which he suggested reflected poor prioritization. Consider how flat Ramamurti’s criticism would fall had he said that a tax cut for underpaid workers struggling to make rent reflected poor prioritization.
The Working Americans’ Tax Cut Act fixes a fundamental structural flaw in the federal income tax: We’re taxing those with no ability to pay into poverty, while maintaining top rates that are absurdly low. We can quibble about the details of fixing that flaw. Maybe the basic cost of living in America is not exactly $46,000. Maybe the cost-of-living exemption should be phased out over a narrower income range.
When our organization, Patriotic Millionaires, worked with congressional offices to develop WATCA, we fully expected commentary along those lines. But ironically enough, there has been remarkably little of it. Instead, we’re hearing that the fundamental structural flaw—and the misery it inflicts on struggling workers—should be left unaddressed. And as a result of their moral ambivalence, we’re left with a Democratic Party that can’t understand why working-class Americans have left them. We can.
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Analysis Warns 'The Wealthiest' Will Benefit If Missouri Passes Dark Money-Backed Amendment 5
While Missouri's 1% would get major tax breaks, one tax policy expert said, "working families and seniors would be asked to make up the difference."
Jul 15, 2026
Tax policy experts warned Tuesday that passing Amendment 5 in Missouri next month could lead to middle-income residents paying hundreds of dollars more each year as wealthy households enjoy a tax cut worth tens of thousands.
If approved by voters on August 4, the legislatively referred constitutional amendment would: reduce Missouri's individual income tax, based on revenue growth, until it is eliminated; prohibit future state individual income taxes; decrease personal property and other local taxes when local revenues increase, but bar funding cuts to public schools; and limit expansions of sales and use taxes, unless they are used to lower income tax.
As The Kansas City Star detailed last week, Amendment 5 is a "top priority for Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe," and Missouri Promise PAC, the main campaign supporting it, received "$9.6 million from six organizations or groups that do not have to disclose their donors," also known as dark money.
While some of the campaign backers remain unknown to voters, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) in Washington, DC aimed to shed light on the specifics of the amendment's anticipated impact with its new policy brief.
"Amendment 5 asks Missouri voters to approve a tax shift without telling them which purchases will be taxed or how high sales taxes will rise," said ITEP analyst and brief author Eli Byerly-Duke. "What is clear is who would benefit: the wealthiest Missourians. Working families and seniors would be asked to make up the difference."
Missouri's individual income tax "makes up about 64% of the state's general fund and is the major funding source for state investments in infrastructure, schools, healthcare, public safety, and other services," the brief explains. "Low- and middle-income Missourians already pay a disproportionate share of the taxes to fund public services," and swapping income taxes for higher sales taxes "would shift even more of this responsibility from the state's highest-income individuals to teachers, farmers, truck drivers, and other middle-income Missourians."
Specifically, Byerly-Duke found that "middle-class Missourians with incomes of about $50,000 to $80,000 will pay $535 more in taxes if the personal income tax is eliminated and the sales tax expanded," all while Missouri's top 1%—or those with incomes of $689,300 and above—see an average tax break of $39,978.
The brief also highlights that "neither the Missouri Legislature nor governor has explained exactly how they will expand sales taxes if it passes. They might increase the sales tax rate, or they might expand the sales tax to include purchases of services that are not currently taxed, such as home repair and insurance, car repair and financing, personal care services such as hair or nail care, or medical services. Taxing these items will cost middle-income households a larger share of their incomes than higher-income households, but middle-income families will not get a commensurate benefit from the income tax elimination."
"For senior citizens, active-duty military families, and military retirees, the impact would be even worse," the report continues. "That's because Social Security benefits, active-duty military pay, and military pensions are already exempt from Missouri income tax, so households for whom those are the sole source of income would get no benefit from Amendment 5. For a middle-class Missourian earning between $49,100 and $79,700, this would mean an increase of $1,600 in taxes every year. Overall, seniors alone would see a net tax increase of about $335 million and each pay $365 more, on average, each year."
The brief bolsters the case for voters to say "No on 5," as Protect MO Taxpayers encourages. The "no" campaign's website warns that the amendment "hits seniors, retirees, veterans, and disabled persons hardest. Those on tight fixed incomes may not pay income tax on their limited income, but they will certainly be hurt by higher sales taxes on goods they buy every day, such as groceries, medicine, and gas, and services they use every day, from haircuts to car repairs to healthcare and housing."
"Amendment 5 hits working families hardest of all, with higher sales and use taxes estimated by the nonpartisan Missouri Budget Project to cost the average Missouri family about $500 more in taxes per year overall," Protect MO Taxpayers' site says, also pointing to concerns that it will "increase the tough economic times in rural Missouri" and "make the economic struggle even harder for small businesses."
The proposal "is a severe hit for renters who are already struggling to make ends meet," and "crushes the dreams of Missourians who want to buy or sell a home," the site adds. "Amendment 5 hits active-duty military, who do not pay state income tax but will face higher prices off the base with sales taxes that could roughly triple. This will mean less retail business and economic harm in our neighboring military host communities."
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A Year After Trump Package, Report Shows Rich 'Got a Handout, and Working Families Got the Bill'
"I've never seen a more dangerous and purposeful attempt to make people sick and hungry," said one Pennsylvania state lawmaker.
Jul 10, 2026
Last week marked the first anniversary of President Donald Trump signing H.R. 1, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
But a new report from the progressive advocacy group Defend America Action, obtained exclusively by Common Dreams, demonstrates that while the bill has indeed been beautiful for the richest households, it has been anything but for working-class Americans.
"Republicans sacrificed the American people's financial future, healthcare, and food security to pay for massive tax breaks for big corporations and the ultrawealthy," the report said. "The richest people on the planet got a handout, and working families got the bill."
According to an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), the richest 1% of Americans will see $117 billion in net tax cuts in 2026, an average windfall of roughly $66,000 each and more than the entire bottom 60% will receive combined.
At the same time, the law contained the largest cuts to federal healthcare funding in US history, slashing over $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) over the next decade.
The report found that as of March 2026, less than a year after the bill passed, enrollment in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) had already fallen by 3.8 million.
And after Republicans allowed ACA marketplace subsidies to expire, insurance premiums are projected to increase 114% on average, leading one in five enrollees—over 4.2 million people—to drop their coverage entirely.
Additionally, 11 million low-income Americans no longer receive zero-dollar premiums through the marketplace, while deductibles rose an average of 37% for those buying insurance on their own.
In total, more than 8 million people are estimated to have lost insurance coverage due to cuts to these programs, according to Protect Our Care. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has projected that as many as 15 million could lose insurance by 2034 as a result of the law and other policy changes over the next decade.
US Rep. Dina Titus (D) said that the cuts have hit her state of Nevada especially hard, as many people work in the service industry and don't receive employer-sponsored insurance.
"An estimated 100,000 Nevadans are impacted by this, [could be] kicked off Medicaid, including 22,000 just in my one congressional district, and it's children, it's seniors, and it's people with disabilities who are going to be impacted so directly."
"The failure to continue the [ACA] tax credits... has knocked more people off," she said. "Then people who do have it pay higher rates to cover that. So it doesn't just impact the people who are on Obamacare. It impacts everybody."
According to an analysis by Protect Our Care, more than 1,000 hospitals, nursing homes, maternity wards, and other critical care facilities around the country have either shut down, are at risk of closing, or have cut essential services since the law went into place.
"In my more than 25 years as a practicing physician and now a legislator for the last four years, I've never seen a more dangerous and purposeful attempt to make people sick and hungry," said Pennsylvania state Rep. Arvind Venkat (D-30), an emergency physician who represents the suburbs outside Pittsburgh.
"There are a number of hospitals in Pennsylvania that have closed or are under threat to close as a result of the devastation that's being caused by this legislation," he said.
After $187 billion was cut from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more than 4 million low-income people—10 % of enrollees—no longer receive food assistance, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Millions more are expected to also lose benefits as stringent new work requirements go into effect. This includes 3 million people aged 18-24, according to a report from the Urban Institute, which noted that young adults often have greater difficulty finding stable jobs that allow them to meet the work requirements.
An analysis from ProPublica last month found that across just 12 states that break down data based on age, at least 776,000 children are no longer appearing on SNAP rolls.
"I think when we're talking about SNAP, we should start from the fact that the average benefit per person is [less than] $3 per meal," said Jared Bernstein, who served as the chair of the United States Council of Economic Advisers under former President Joe Biden.
"Nobody's getting rich off of SNAP," he said. "What's happening is people, including a lot of children, are getting fed."
"There's a long line of careful research showing long-term benefits for not just the beneficiaries themselves, but for the broader society," he said, noting that receiving benefits early in life is associated with "better academic performance, long-run health, educational attainment, and economic self-sufficiency."
The report from Defend America Action also said the Trump budget law squashed "an unprecedented American clean energy and manufacturing boom" that began during the Biden years, which created hundreds of thousands of jobs.
The law eliminated clean energy tax credits and led hundreds of projects to be canceled. Citing an analysis by Climate Power, the report said that over 140,000 clean energy jobs have been lost, are at risk, or have been delayed due to H.R. 1, stemming from 382 canceled or delayed projects that represented $69 billion in investment.
This has also contributed to the $92 billion spike in energy bills since Trump took office, the report said. Those canceled projects could have powered more than 17 million homes.
The law also killed the $7,500 electric vehicle (EV) tax credit, which has locked consumers into driving gas-powered cars that cost more to power, especially as Trump's war with Iran has sent gas prices soaring.
Bernstein noted that EV sales "fell off a cliff" after the tax credits were canceled.
"I can't begin to describe how shortsighted this is," he said. "Not just in terms of the environment, but also in terms of the US ever having a chance to capture market share in what I believe already is a do-or-die product development for the auto sector."
He noted that the US abandonment of clean energy, even as its use grows worldwide, has led China to dominate the market.
"This isn't China just eating our lunch," Bernstein said. "This is us serving our lunch to them."
Defend America Action's report notes that at the time of its passage, H.R. 1 was the most unpopular piece of legislation to pass through Congress since at least 1990, with just 31% approving and 55% disapproving, according to an average of four major polls.
Just months before the midterm elections, the bill remains equally unpopular, with only 33% of Americans saying they favor it and 48% opposing it, according to a recent survey by Navigator Research.
Titus told Common Dreams that one year ago, her colleagues in the GOP were very excited to pass H.R. 1.
Now, she said, "They don't really talk about it."
"They always are up for cutting programs," Titus said. "They call it fraud, waste, and abuse, but it's not. It's benefits that people needed."
"I think as you get closer to the election, there will be more concern about it," Titus said. "You know they cleverly made some of these cuts not go into effect until after the election, so they had to have been aware that they weren't very popular."
"I think we need to get the message out as much and as often as we can," she said, "and that's been kind of focused on affordability because all these different programs that we mentioned tie together."
"It's not just one little hit," Titus said. "It's across-the-board hits."
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A Winning Message for 2026 Swing Voters: Tax the Rich and Medicare for All!
“The swing voters who will decide the midterms are not asking Democrats to sound more like Republicans—they want Democrats to embrace progressive economic policies that will actually work to lower costs."
Jul 09, 2026
Democratic strategists have long clashed over whether the path to victory runs through "moderation" or bold progressive ideas, and a new analysis of 2026 swing voters boosts arguments for the latter, revealing the top policies that would sway them to vote Democrat include raising taxes on the wealthy and establishing a Medicare for All-type universal healthcare system.
On Thursday, Data for Progress published a new report identifying a relatively small but electorally crucial bloc comprising roughly 8% of likely 2026 voters who are genuinely persuadable heading into the November midterms. These swing voters, many of whom voted for President Donald Trump in 2024, identify as moderates or independents rather than conservatives, consume relatively little political news, and are primarily focused on one issue above all else: the cost of living.
"A plurality of swing voters aren’t sure which party they trust on the major issues, but Democrats hold a slight advantage on inflation and the cost of living, the top issue for swing voters," Data for Progress found. "Around 1 in 3 swing voters say their biggest issues with the Democratic Party are its 'old and out of touch' leadership and the party 'not doing enough to lower costs.'"
"The most popular proposal was simple: Raise taxes on the wealthy," the report states. "Twenty-eight percent selected it as one of their top three choices. Close behind, at 24%, was creating a Medicare for All healthcare system. Those weren't followed by tougher immigration policies or deficit reduction. Instead, voters also favored banning artificial intelligence from setting prices or wages based on personal data and preventing utility companies from passing unreasonable costs on to consumers."
NEW: Our first report on the swing voters of the 2026 midterms finds that when they are asked which policies would make them definitely vote for a Democrat, the most selected option is “raise taxes on the wealthy,” followed by “create a Medicare for All health care system.”
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— Data for Progress (@dataforprogress.org) July 9, 2026 at 6:30 AM
According to the report, swing voters currently favor a Democratic candidate for Congress over a Republican by a 12-point margin, with 46% undecided.
“The swing voters who will decide the midterms are not asking Democrats to sound more like Republicans—they want Democrats to embrace progressive economic policies that will actually work to lower costs and put workers first,” Data for Progress executive director Ryan O'Donnell said on Thursday. “Voters have been making clear for years that cost-of-living issues are the top priority. Taking more conservative stances is not what voters are asking for from their leaders right now.”
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GOP Showered Big Corporations With Tax Breaks. They Returned the Favor With Campaign Cash
"Republicans in Congress sold out many of their own constituents to help corporations get even richer," said the campaign director of Unrig Our Economy.
Jul 03, 2026
Major American corporations that benefited from tax cuts enacted last year by President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are donating to the campaigns of GOP lawmakers who made the windfall possible.
A report published Friday by Unrig Our Economy spotlights seven House Republicans who voted for the sprawling and unpopular GOP budget package, which extended tax breaks for corporations and wealthy Americans while inflicting unprecedented cuts on Medicaid and federal nutrition assistance—with disastrous consequences for millions of low-income families across the country.
Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa), one of the lawmakers featured in the new report, has received campaign donations from corporate PACs representing 3M, Amazon, Walmart, AT&T, and other companies that collectively received billions of dollars in tax breaks from the Republican law, which restored a provision allowing businesses to immediately write off new investments.
Amazon saw its US income taxes fall by more than half last year due to the GOP law, even as the company's profits grew. Unrig Our Economy noted that Amazon, whose PAC donated thousands to the Republicans spotlighted in the new report, has an effective federal tax rate of 1.37% following enactment of the budget law.
Miller-Meeks, who has received at least $57,000 in donations from the PACs of companies that benefited from the 2025 law, issued a statement Thursday bragging about supporting "the largest tax cuts in American history," not mentioning that the benefits will disproportionately flow to profitable corporations and the richest people in the country.
"Thanks to the Republican tax law, corporations are receiving tax breaks, House Republicans are getting campaign cash, and working families are getting stuck with the bill," the report states.
Another Republican lawmaker featured in the report, Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania, received $2,500 in campaign donations from the PAC of FirstEnergy, which reaped $500 million in depreciation deductions thanks to the GOP tax law.
"Bresnahan voted to give FirstEnergy hundreds of millions in tax breaks even after the company raised utility prices for his constituents," Unrig Our Economy's report observes.
The report also points out that Bresnahan "owned stock in every single one" of the companies who contributed PAC money to his campaign following passage of the Republican budget package last summer.
"This comes after Bresnahan has already faced scrutiny for dumping stock in Medicaid providers and selling off bonds in Pennsylvania hospitals before voting to slash Medicaid and put rural hospitals at risk," the report notes.
Leor Tal, Unrig Our Economy's campaign director, said in a statement that "one year ago, House Republicans ripped away healthcare and food assistance from millions of Americans, so that corporations could get massive tax breaks."
"Now, many of those companies are dishing out PAC money to the Republicans listed in this report," said Tal. "Republicans in Congress sold out many of their own constituents to help corporations get even richer. It’s time that House Republicans step up, do the right thing, and start fighting for working Americans—not giant corporations."
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