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On Tax Day, Remember the Tax Dodgers
As you pony up to pay your taxes – or fill out forms to get back a portion of what Uncle Sam has already withheld from your paycheck – pause to contemplate how wealthy and corporate tax dodgers deal with Tax Day. 
The emerging US UNCUT movement is pressing the point: “No Budget Cuts before tax dodgers pay up.” There are over 100 actions planned for this tax weekend to underscore this point.
If you write a check over $10 to the IRS, then you just paid more than Verizon, Boeing, Bank of America, Citigroup and General Electric combined in federal taxes.
And you may have paid a higher percentage of your income than the billionaires who appear on the pages of the Forbes 400. As super-investor Warren Buffet has pointed out, he pays a lower actual tax rate than his secretary.
Business Week’s cover story this week is “The Billionaires Guide to Paying No Taxes.” Reporter Jessie Drucker declares, “the more you make, the less you pay.” For our nation’s millionaires and billionaires, “this could be the best tax day since the early 1930s.”
Don’t worry, we’re assured, these wealthy investors and global corporations are the great productive engines of the American economy. To tax them at all, we are told, would be to “kill jobs” and hurt the economy. In fact, we should pay them – like the $3.2 billion we taxpayers funneled to General Electric last year in various forms of tax breaks and subsidies.
Here’s the thing: If you gave me $3 billion – I would create jobs, too. Or if our society invested in green infrastructure and our small domestic U.S. business sector, we’d create even more jobs. But the key question is what kind of country do we want to be –and how will we pay for it together?
When we hear our governors and lawmakers lament that “we’re broke,” consider this fact: If corporations and households with $1 million income paid at the same levels they did in 1961, the Treasury would collect an additional $716 billion a year – or $7 trillion over a decade.
Our budgetary stress is the result of declining revenue, thanks to the economic downturn and decades of tax cuts. A new report that I co-authored, Unnecessary Austerity, argues that before we make draconian budget cuts at the federal and state level -- we should reverse huge tax cuts for the wealthy and tax dodging corporations.
If corporations and households with $1 million income paid at the same levels they did in 1961, the Treasury would collect an additional $716 billion a year – or $7 trillion over a decade.
There are two important explanations behind our current budget “squeeze.” First, income and wealth have become extremely concentrated in the hands of the super wealthy. The richest 1 percent of households own over 35.6 percent of all private wealth, approximately $20 trillion. The number of households with incomes exceeding $1 million has grown from 15,753 in 1961 to 361,000 today, adjusted for inflation. Meanwhile the middle class standard of living is collapsing and poverty rates are at a 15-year high.
Second, we’ve dramatically reduced taxes on these wealthy households and the global corporations they largely own. Congress and special interest lobbyists have made mincemeat of our tax code, losing hundreds of billions in revenue. A new study from Public Campaign shows that a dozen companies spent over $1 billion on lobbying Congress for subsidies and tax breaks.
That’s how a profitable company like General Electric legally and aggressively avoids taxes. Since 2006, General Electric has reported over $26 billion in profits, yet paid not one penny in U.S. taxes.
Other huge global companies such as Verizon, Boeing, ExxonMobil, and Federal Express also pay no or very low taxes.
In his new book Treasure Islands, journalist Nicholas Shaxson describes how these artful tax dodgers use accounting gymnastics to move money to overseas tax havens like the Cayman Islands or Ireland. They pretend to earn their profits offshore and then report their paper losses here in the United States—reducing or eliminating their U.S. taxes.
Our “Unnecessary Austerity” report identifies over $4 trillion in potential revenue over the next decade. Closing offshore tax havens could generate an estimated $100 billion a year. Adding new top tax brackets for millionaires could generate another $60-80 billion. Instituting a financial transaction tax could generate $150 billion a year.
Public opinion polls show that the majority of voters would rather hike taxes on millionaires and tax dodgers before budget cuts. But with Congress captured by corporate interests, it’s going to take a powerful movement to push back. The emerging US UNCUT movement is pressing the point: “No Budget Cuts before tax dodgers pay up.” There are over 100 actions planned for this tax weekend to underscore this point.
Without such a social movement, reasonable solutions will be drowned out by the drumbeat of “we’re broke.”
40 Comments so far
Show AllTax avoidance is as American as you get. We had a revolution because of taxation.
Trouble is that the avoidance is only for the rich and powerful this time.
Tax the rich until there are no more rich.
But, Obama is rich.
Of course, those of the bottom 50% or so in earnings are avoiding taxes altogether. Everybody should be taxed at the same rate with neither reductions for those in the lower ranks nor penalties for those in the higher. The current system puts too much power in the hands of corrupt politicians (oh, but I repeat myself!) by allowing them to manipulate tax policies to favor the voters to whom they owe allegiance.
A flat tax without any deductions or other monkey business would be a step in the right direction, but the FairTax is the best plan of all. Let's abolish the IRS, squash the evil system whereby politicians buy votes with money they've taken from others, and make April 15th just another day!
See www.FairTax.org for more information about this straightforward and fair approach.
The country did quite well with a progressive income tax system in the 1950's (when the maximim tax rate was about 90%) until Reagan started the process of lowering the rates.
If we look back far enough, we see that the country did quite well before the imposition of the income tax. The progressive part is an unfair foul that rewards those who don't generate their own wealth and penalizes those who do.
My primary regret with President Reagan's changes is that he and the legislature failed to cut out the penalties on success and that the tax code still allows millions of Americans to just skip out of paying any share of the costs involved with defense, commerce, justice, etc.
"...the tax code still allows millions of Americans to just skip out of paying any share of the costs involved with defense, commerce, justice, etc."
That's because they don't OWE anything for those things- they are NOT for OUR benefit, these costs are in NO WAY for OUR benefit~ the idle rich and corporate sub-humans need to pay their own way! I shouldn't have to send the IRS anything and apparently ALL of my money needs to be returned to me as they seem intent on eliminating all of the programs that I do and should support.
But how much was actually paid? Tax shelters then were designed to lose money so a $10,000 investment would guarantee a tax savings from $15,000 to 50,000.
STOP WIT: You already posted this garbage libertarian CRAP and had it cremated by several astute CD posters. The TRUTH of how your "plan" would work in real time was already laid out; but you are more interested in repeating lies or right wing talking points, than in remedying your views to those that might reflect a rudiment of social or economic justice.
Hi, Siouxrose -- Would you care to provide some details to illustrate how my "plan" will not work as advertised?
Oh, and could you also tell me what lies you believe I've told? I am trying to engage people here in meaningful dialogue, but your accusations don't add anything to the discussion unless you can cite specific areas in which I've lied.
So you know, I believe in justice, but not the garbage masked as social or economic justice, which favors groups of people, rewards bad behaviors, and penalizes those who choose to succeed.
OK, if we want a flat tax then let's start with Social Security taxes -
instead of now being 4.2% ONLY up to $106,800 lets make them
4.2% across the whole income.
Agreed?
ORB: Sounds like a good start (to me).
And then increase the Social Security payouts for upper-income SS taxpayers so that their SS checks would be the same percentage of money they paid in during their working years as is paid out to low-income SS taxpayers? (The left-wing "thinkers" would scream with rage.)
As long as it is the same percentage paid out as the percentage paid to lower-income workers, no problem with it at all.
But as long as you are singing that tune, sing it all the way: ALL income, regardless of its source - sales of stock, other capital gains, or straight wages - gets SS taken out. And NO CAP. I pay SS on my entire $50K/year salary, while some fuck making $10 million/year only pays SS on the first $106K. Not. He can pay SS on his entire income, just like i do on mine.
That would also - hmm, what a nice little bonus - make SS solvent for the next 500 years or so. What a concept.
Good plan, Demonstorm!
Horace -- That's a good point. People should reap what they sow into the broken Social Security system. Better yet, people should be allowed to keep their entire checks (i.e., pay no SS taxes) and invest as they see fit.
That's an even better idea.
:-)
orbit7er -- That, like the flat tax itself, would be a step in the right direction. Justice and fairness dictate that we tax those at the top of the economic ladder the same as those in the middle and on the bottom.
Of course, a better bet would be to scrap all taxes on income (face it, a lot of people don't have income, so they're able to dodge taxes completely) and implement a consumption based tax instead. That way, regardless of where somebody got their money (e.g., from work, investments, illegal activities, from out of the country [tourists], etc.), they would be taxed when they spent it.
The FairTax is nearly flawless, in that people only pay taxes when they consume, it taxes everybody at the same rate, removes the political clout of lobbyists, takes power from career politicians, and we aren't forced as a nation to waste 6.1 billion hours and billions of dollars trying to comply with the tax code.
Don't listen to the naysayers in this forum. Instead, check out the way the FairTax proposal was built and how it works at www.FairTax.org. Believe me, the vast majority of politicians and those who believe in redistribution of wealth hate this plan, so you'll make them very angry if you read up on it. Enjoy!
"Taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society" - Oliver Wendell Holmes.
"If we can not help the many who are poor, then we can not protect the few who are rich"- John F. Kennedy
Butt, the Teabagging GOP & Ann Rand sycophants prefer taking us back to the 8th century of lords and serfs.
Tax the rich
feed the poor
tax the rich
'til they're rich no more
Uncle Ho -- That's a popular approach to taxation (i.e., penalize the rich and give to the poor), but what happens when you don't have any rich people to shoulder the load for the freeloaders any more?
As Margaret Thatcher and others have noted, that plan works for a while, but you eventually run out of other peoples' money. What then? Will the people who are poor because they chose not to work start working then or redirect their robber attention. Maybe they'll stop using the government as their proxy for taking what doesn't belong to them and take it themselves?
I have a friend who worked for 36 years in a automotive parts supplier factory until the place closed and the jobs went to China. She is hardly shiftless or lazy.
The Government encourages companies to send jobs overseas with tax subsidies passed by your GOP.
In the last Congress, Democrats tried to close off this insanity, but was killed by the Repiggies in the Senate.
If you have policies in place to impoverish masses of people for the benefit of the wealthy few, the masses will take matters into their own hands.
See: King Louis & Marie Antoinette
Thus, it is in their own best interests for the wealthy few to actually reward their workers, not just enrich themselves. But that is not what's happening. Corporate profits are skyrocketing, CEO & upper management bonuses are WAY out of proportion while their workers face stagnant/falling wages while at the same time their productivity and work loads are increasing.
Sooner or later, the masses will snap and the results will not be pretty(at least for the wealthy few).
Me, I'd love to see the guillotines built and for the people to storm the Bastille to give the corporate A-holes and their bought and paid for Republic party pimps get their just rewards.
Remember, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter Heaven."
Uncle Ho --
For the record, the GOP is not mine. Those folks are just as bad as the Democrats; perhaps worse, since they claim to be the party of limited government and low taxes. Anyway, I am not beholden to either party because both focus on greater government power and reduced individual liberty.
You've made some good arguments for scrapping the tax code and adopting the FairTax here, as the FairTax would eliminate the power of the congress to use taxation to encourage companies to send manufacturing or other processes overseas or to penalize those that keep their operations here in the States.
Go FairTax!
Put a sock in it, Uncle Blow.
Whore-Ass
PHUCK OFF!!!!!
Pay taxes by credit card and file on the last day. This is doing something.
.
TAXATION:
There is a common axiom which goes =The power to tax is the power to destroy=. But you never see the corollary axiom =The power to destroy is the power to tax=. It takes but a moment to realize that H. sapiens's history shows humans accept sexual services in lieu of legal tender for tax payment.
Consequently, circa 1997, I began to use a new Wealth / Income Metric on my personal websites. The metric system is based upon BJPUOT or Blow Jobs Per Unit Of Time.
In this system, no attempt is made to recognize =reality=. I may describe the former income of some Capitalist Power Elite as 89 blow jobs per hour. Said individual is now apoplectic about economic forces reducing this hourly income to only 82 blow jobs, and who who reacts THUS.
"This is unacceptable. This is because of the blood sucking POOR - who get one BJ per year due to the generosity of my floating of all boats. In order to get my income back up to the Natural & Divine Standard of 89 blow jobs per hour, there will need to be a three year moratorium on boat floating blow jobs for the poor, the needy, and the destitute. Screw their blood sucking health care systems!
To achieve this END I will create a BUDGET. Next, I will dress goons and thugs of low-average intelligence in UNIFORMS with INTIMIDATING, IRONED PLEATS IN SHIRTS, and leather things that squeak when they rub together. At the end of a shift shafting the POOR on behalf of Capitalist Worthies, each hired goon will get one blow job. They'll be happy to laugh at PhDs who get only one per fortnight."
This metric system is far easier for ordinary people to comprehend than =illions=. An old saw goes: "If you point to the sky and tell a man there are billions of stars in our galaxy - he will believe you. But if you tell him there's wet paint on a particular park bench he will reflexively reach out and touch it."
Trylon
Well, that's not a very equitable system of assessing tax !!!!
Since being penis free I can't get a blow job.
Morticia,,
Can't just read and move on, without commenting what the late George Carlin said on "Voting"
you mean this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KkA29CvLzw
What I do not see is much discussion on why the rich should pay more? Liberals/Progressives/Socialists need to do a much better job in explaining why the rich should pay more taxes. Perhaps they are concerned that then they will be accused of professing some kind of socialism? Well, if that is what it is, might as well embrace it, given that it already exists in some form and shape (Social Security/Medicare, funds for Interstate Highways, etc., for all, and government bail-outs for the Wall Street)! By not openly debating this only causes ambiguity, and nothing helps the pimps for Wall Street on Capitol Hill more than lack of clarity!
MSID: It's always quite curious when someone enters a progressive forum to argue against the rich paying more. This is especially curious given the fact that the rich pay lobbyists who make sure specific politicians get enough air time/media space to get elected; and of course, that's where the quid pro quo comes into play. Loyal to their paying sponsors, these politicians will make sure legislation is passed that favors the industries that financed their campaigns.
Were the evidence not abundantly clear that wealth has been ENGINEERED to remain in fewer and fewer hands, were the evidence not abundantly clear that the erasure of the Glass Steagall Act (allowing banks to speculate on Wall Street, one of the items that led directly to the Great Depression) has led to massive fiscal losses, in part seen in the eviscerated value of peoples' homes (the main area of investment for most of middle America), were the evidence not abundantly clear that wages have stagnated, and that lots of money disappears into foreign accounts... then YOUR argument (and complacency) would be worth considering.
Measures have come into effect that have gradually eased the tax burden on the wealthy, along with major corporations... or did you miss the part about GE paying no taxes? Do you have a problem with a minimal tax on Wall St trades? Or cuttting the gargantuan military budget?
Money exists IF the dues and responsibilities of society are spread around in a way that makes sense. Those who think a flat tax = a fair tax don't understand (or wish to see) the dynamics that would underscore such a program.
Once again, for anyone to take the side of the "poor rich" in today's economy with so many out of work, homes foreclosed upon, and the RICH IN PREDATION of society is either a sick cookie or PAID to push an insidious agenda... appearing naive is a Columbo-like tactic. It's a convenient way to get a right wing talking point into play in this forum, as if it has any merit or moral justification. Sickening.
Actually, I am very much in favor of the rich paying more, a lot more; all I am suggesting is that we need to have an open debate on why, something that I do not see much in the media. If we did, we would talk about social responsibility, very little of which takes place in the debates. One sign of avodance of this debate is the refusal to teach "Civics" in our schools, perfect place to grow socially responsible citizens.
MS: You are utterly naive about media and its role in a nation captured by corporate influences. Why would media discuss this? Did media show you much on the "debate" about health care, the debate outside of what big insurance wanted the public to hear, see, or know? Does media discuss the way wealth has been ENGINEERED to aggregate upwards? Can your naive questions be as clueless as they seem, or are you not up to date on issues? Your subtext reads as if there really was a left-leaning media...
How many authors, some of whom are Nobel Laureates and Pulitzer Prize winners, do you see routinely on media? Why do you suppose the preponderance of voices sound like Glenn Beck/Rush Limbaugh/Bill O'Reilly, etc? Even the females, dimwits like Sarah Palin or hatemongers like Ann Coulter...
Civics is not a bad idea, but when you have the right wing influencing education AND religious training, you're dealing with a population pool that's being indoctrinated in a support of an authoritarian worldview. Chris Hedges has written vividly of this covert phenomena, and it's one that the uninformed ignore at their own (and the nation's) peril.
Paid trolls do abound. If you've been consistently on the alternative media websites following comments for years, you know that they are being more and more infiltrated as time goes on. The trolls appear from under every bridge. It's best not to respond at all. Don't even say "my big, juicy brother is coming soon right behind me." Just clip clop on and butt them off the bridge if they attack.
Yes indeed. And notice how as the national consciousness seems to finally be catching on to the fact that the country is 100% owned - lock, stock, and barrel - by the elite corporatist oligarchy, the more these right-wing corporatist trolls post on sites such as these. Coincidence? I think not.
Then again, if I were a rich, elite, corporatist oligarch and I saw how the worker-class masses were beginning to stir and get pissed off, I would be quite afraid also. Can't blame them for trying. There are, after all, 300 million of us "worker bees," and only a few tens of thousands of them. Do the math.
Corporations exist only if a government allows them to. Of all "legal persons" they are the one's most indebted to the government, for their continuing existence. Of all "legal persons", they should pay the highest taxes not the lowest taxes. Corporations are truly Frankenstein monsters, who control and threaten their creator. But Frankenstein is a work of fiction. These corporations are very real, if their legal definition is that of "fictional persons".
Get rich! Be a politician!
or
Direct Democracy NOW!
Amazing. Loads of cynical comments here, but no mention of the rallies on MONDAY in front of the corporate offices of tax dodgers like GE.
Get away from your computer keyboard and make some noise where it might actually be heard.
Good point, dave_m. What we have in this country is a spending problem, not a revenue problem. Unlike the rest of us, our corrupt government refuses to live within its means.
You won't see Chuck Collins on CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX or any other corporate media outlet. To them SILENCE IS GOLDEN.