Public Comment

The sordid secret is out. While most Americans “pay taxes as they earn” the ultra-rich have successfully gamed the system paying little or no taxes for the rest of their lives. The scam is easy to understand – never sell your enormous stock holdings which will trigger huge capital gains. Far better to borrow against your stock holdings at relative low interest rates to finance your lavish lifestyle, trips to faraway places or even a yacht to serve as a landing pad for your other yacht standing by. 

Towards the end of their lives, they transfer all their stock holdings and capital assets to their next of kin and the wicked game continues - until lawmakers stiffen their spines and pass a WEALTH TAX TO HELP PAY FOR THE CRUMBLING ROADS AND BRIDGES. 

Jesse Eisinger and his team at ProPublica have unearthed the numbers to back their findings. In “The Secret I.R.S. Files,” they combed through more than 15 years of federal income tax records, revealing that Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, George Soros and many others have paid as little as $0 in recent years. These billionaires live outside the tax system perfectly legally. Eisinger explains that the rich have built their power base and, their power on this scheme.  

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has proposed a worthless miniscule increase in the marginal tax rate from 37 percent to 39.6 percent.We have learned little from history. 

The colonists broke with England when the super wealthy of the budding British Empire efficiently controlled Parliament ensuring their assets were not taxed and the cost of empire were laid upon those without the money and connections. "Citizens United" has greatly facilitated the practice of legalized bribery. 

The shining beacon on the hill has been lost to the fog of corruption. Only the teaming masses desperate to enter the “promised land” still believe in the American dream.