Public Comment

Many members of Congress claim that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) needs a larger budget. But their voting record reveals that they actually mean the opposite. Since 2010 Congress has reduced the IRS budget by 22 percent. Also the IRS has lost during these years 15,000 employees. Moreover, the IRS budget cut 30 percent of its most important employees, the enforcement staff.

In addition, the number of audits except for the poor have been reduced in each of the last seven years. Currently poor taxpayers (earning less than $25,000 annually) have an audit rate that is 50 percent higher than the overall rate. Incredibly, the poor get audited more than any other group except those with income of more than $500,000.

With regard to personnel practices, minority employees have, hopefully, been treated fairly. At least until now, the federal government has been more favorable toward hiring Blacks than the private sector. Blacks in the private workforce make up 12.6 percent of the employees. African Americans working for the federal government do much better, making up 18.1 percent of federal workers. And they are more likely to hold better jobs. Many blacks employed by the federal government occupy professional and administrative positions. 

Among the adverse consequences of changes in auditing has been a 71 percent reduction in corporate auditing. Also, the earnings of the rich are taxed on mainly their corporate investments, particularly stocks and bonds. These investments are taxed at a lower rate than wages, which is what workers earn. 

In addition. President Trump and his Republican Party colleagues have played a major role in cutting corporate taxes by enacting the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. This legislation reduced the corporate tax from 35 to 21 percent, which is the largest corporate tax cut in history. This cut robs the federal government annually of millions of dollars. Also, the law contains other features that favor the rich. Among the gains is that the 400 richest families now pay a lower tax rate than the middle class. 

Actually, many major corporations pay no income tax at all. The justification is that their profits are deposited in many countries abroad that have no income tax.  

This strategy is a hoax. They claim that they are keeping their earnings abroad, But they really are not. These so called tax havens are often no more than a post office box. Their earnings are mainly deposited in American banks, circulated in the American economy, and available for domestic investments, Particularly troubling, at least $90 billion a year is dodged in income taxes,  

Clearly, American multinational corporations and the American government are complicit in both immoral and illegal conduct. 

To more fully appreciate the class divisions in our society, the 50 richest people nationwide have as much wealth as the bottom half of the population of 165 million people. Nevertheless, the New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, has refused to raise taxes on the rich. Not surprisingly, he has been amply rewarded with substantial campaign contributions from the rich.  

As the labor newsletter, Labor Notes explained, the wealthy have too much wealth and too much political power. The politicians are apparently convinced that slashing public services is less risky than going after the wealthy. 

The only alternative is to develop a broad based alliance of working people that is capable of and willing to use its disruptive capacity to compel their opponents to listen and to make concessions. As both the labor movement and the civil rights movement demonstrated, major victories can be achieved.