ProPublica, the nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power, recently published secret IRS Files as part of an ongoing reporting project.
The article details how, in “2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world’s richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011. In 2018, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second richest person in the world, also paid no federal income taxes. Michael Bloomberg managed to do the same in recent years. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn did it twice. George Soros paid no federal income tax three years in a row.
“ProPublica obtained a vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data on the tax returns of thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people, covering more than 15 years,” it says. “The data provides an unprecedented look inside the financial lives of America’s titans, including Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg. It shows not just their income and taxes, but also their investments, stock trades, gambling winnings and even the results of audits.” Of course the IRS is threatening to go after ProPublica for publishing the information that is supposed to be kept secret from the public.
With the country struggling to pay for upgrading roads and bridges, assisting working families in paying for childcare, and a whole host of other pressing needs, the fact the wealthiest citizens don’t pay their fair share of taxes should outrage the public, but if history is any indicator, people will simply shrug their shoulders and go “Oh well.”
The article continues by stating that, “Taken together, it demolishes the cornerstone myth of the American tax system: that everyone pays their fair share and the richest Americans pay the most. The IRS records show that the wealthiest can — perfectly legally — pay income taxes that are only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions, if not billions, their fortunes grow each year.”
When President Biden suggested raising the tax rate on the wealthiest of Americans, Republicans naturally balked, knowing they can use the filibuster to block any effort make the income tax fairer. They are using the same filibuster to prevent passage of other legislation — such as the Voting Rights Act — which would guarantee that Sstate legislatures in red states can’t enact laws that make it harder for persons of color to exercise their franchise at the ballot box.
The only hope working class folks have of rectifying this situation is to find ways to get around whatever roadblocks Republicans erect at the state level and go to the polls in overwhelmingly large numbers and elect people to Congress that has their welfare at heart, not the welfare of the super rich.
