dagblog - Comments for "Tax for thee not for me: Propublica outs the rich"

speaking of weirdos, I ran

artappraiser — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 22:02:45 +0000

speaking of weirdos, I ran across a numerologist relative of qanon already working hard:

John McAfee has allegedly killed himself in jail (exactly 22 months 2 weeks after Epstein's death on the 222nd day of the year) having explicitly stated that if he ends up a suicide it means he was wacked. https://t.co/cGQeWvSnfM
— Brother Berg (@extracapsa) June 23, 2021

Quite the weirdo

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 19:58:05 +0000

In reply to death and taxes, taxes and

Quite the weirdo

https://www.dw.com/en/founder-of-anti-virus-giant-mcafee-arrested-in-bar...

death and taxes, taxes and

artappraiser — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 19:33:13 +0000

In reply to Tax for thee not for me: Propublica outs the rich

death and taxes, taxes and death:

Spanish media reporting that John McAfee comitted suicide in a spanish jail cell after he was cleared to be extradited to the U.S. https://t.co/FF1XYKWrb2
— Greg Otto (@gregotto) June 23, 2021

The Department of Justice has confirmed that the American tycoon John McAfee has been found dead in the cell he occupied in the Brians 2 Penitentiary Center. He was seventy-five years old.
— Nathan Michaud (@InvestorsLive) June 23, 2021

Spain’s National Court has approved the extradition of detained antivirus software entrepreneur John McAfee to the United States, where he is wanted on tax-related criminal charges that carry a prison sentence of up to 30 years. https://t.co/4UAd2zdJxP
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 23, 2021

John McAfee's last tweet https://t.co/gyJ08SwhDU
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 23, 2021

a reminder: libertarians generally don't like the situation of high taxes on success

MacKenzie Scott can't give it

artappraiser — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 20:02:40 +0000

In reply to Tax for thee not for me: Propublica outs the rich

MacKenzie Scott can't give it away fast enough to keep the capital gains taxes away! It just keeps growing. Y'all do realize that is a lot of what is going on here? She gets to do what we can't - select where her money goes rather than Congress allocating it?

MacKenzie Scott, one of the richest women in the world, announced on Tuesday a third multibillion-dollar round of donations in less than a year. Scott who was married to Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder, gave away nearly $6 billion in 2020. https://t.co/NVJDb2PnxH
— The New York Times (@nytimes) June 15, 2021

1) i think it highlights a

PeraclesPlease — Mon, 14 Jun 2021 15:57:00 +0000

In reply to Again:

1) i think it highlights a distance lack of oversight by Congress and various administrations and an abrogation of duty.

2) while we've talked about the right of Congress to demand tax reports from any and all people, they apparently have not been doing this where it would form effective tax policy

3) instead the public has been led to believe taxation is founded on an effective and fair wealth harnessing strategy, when instead it's simply a huge scandalous pyramid scheme.

Of course these wealth hoarders didn't "break the law" so much - unless we count how many avoid audits by emaciated IRS departments - they simply have their minions in government write the laws to focus on earned income and benefits, while ignoring wealth offsets.

If BuzzFeed released hacked mails showing multi-million dollar US military arsenals were filled with weapons that were too weak to actually sustain a battle, you'd be less worried about "who broke the law" and more about "how do we fix this horrid security weakness and strength inferiority."

ProPublica has 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. 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.

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.

...The confidential tax records obtained by ProPublica show that the ultrarich effectively sidestep this [taxation] system.

America’s billionaires avail themselves of tax-avoidance strategies beyond the reach of ordinary people. Their wealth derives from the skyrocketing value of their assets, like stock and property. Those gains are not defined by U.S. laws as taxable income unless and until the billionaires sell.

...According to Forbes, those 25 people saw their worth rise a collective $401 billion from 2014 to 2018. They paid a total of $13.6 billion in federal income taxes in those five years, the IRS data shows. That’s a staggering sum, but it amounts to a true tax rate of only 3.4%.

...In the coming months, ProPublica will use the IRS data we have obtained to explore in detail how the ultrawealthy avoid taxes, exploit loopholes and escape scrutiny from federal auditors.

...Experts have long understood the broad outlines of how little the wealthy are taxed in the United States, and many lay people have long suspected the same thing.

But few specifics about individuals ever emerge in public. Tax information is among the most zealously guarded secrets in the federal government. ProPublica has decided to reveal individual tax information of some of the wealthiest Americans because it is only by seeing specifics that the public can understand the realities of the country’s tax syste

Consider Bezos’ 2007, one of the years he paid zero in federal income taxes. Amazon’s stock more than doubled. Bezos’ fortune leapt $3.8 billion, according to Forbes, whose wealth estimates are widely cited. How did a person enjoying that sort of wealth explosion end up paying no income tax?

...He was able to offset every penny he earned with losses from side investments and various deductions, like interest expenses on debts and the vague catchall category of “other expenses.”

In 2011, a year in which his wealth held roughly steady at $18 billion, Bezos filed a tax return reporting he lost money — his income that year was more than offset by investment losses. What’s more, because, according to the tax law, he made so little, he even claimed and received a $4,000 tax credit for his children.

His tax avoidance is even more striking if you examine 2006 to 2018, a period for which ProPublica has complete data. Bezos’ wealth increased by $127 billion, according to Forbes, but he reported a total of $6.5 billion in income. The $1.4 billion he paid in personal federal taxes is a massive number — yet it amounts to a 1.1% true tax rate on the rise in his fortune.

The revelations provided by the IRS data come at a crucial moment. Wealth inequality has become one of the defining issues of our age. The president and Congress are considering the most ambitious tax increases in decades on those with high incomes. But the American tax conversation has been dominated by debate over incremental changes, such as whether the top tax rate should be 39.6% rather than 37%.

ProPublica’s data shows that while some wealthy Americans, such as hedge fund managers, would pay more taxes under the current Biden administration proposals, the vast majority of the top 25 would see little change.

The tax data was provided to ProPublica after we published a series of articles scrutinizing the IRS. The articles exposed how years of budget cuts have hobbled the agency’s ability to enforce the law and how the largest corporations and the rich have benefited from the IRS’ weakness. They also showed how people in poor regions are now more likely to be audited than those in affluent areas.

Again:

Jeff — Mon, 14 Jun 2021 15:39:21 +0000

In reply to Laws are being broken by the

Again:

What laws were broken by tax avoidance as described by the article published by ProPublica?

As long as the government has

Jeff — Fri, 11 Jun 2021 20:13:08 +0000

In reply to I could be none more nervous…

As long as the government has something to sell, people will buy it.

Once again you change the

Jeff — Fri, 11 Jun 2021 20:11:18 +0000

In reply to Laws are being broken by the

Once again you change the subject.

What laws were broken by tax avoidance as described by the article published by ProPublica?

I could be none more nervous…

artappraiser — Fri, 11 Jun 2021 06:05:55 +0000

In reply to Tax for thee not for me: Propublica outs the rich

I could be none more nervous… https://t.co/MqmV63RphZ
— Steven Dean (@brooklyntaxprof) June 10, 2021

also I have this from a while back:

Intuit Inc.—TurboTax's developer—spent $3.26 million on lobbyists at the federal government level in 2020 alone & tens of millions more over the past decades, including lobbying against U.S. taxpayers' ability to file taxes for free through the IRS https://t.co/kwQdFseCB7 https://t.co/ilOLcTR5Df pic.twitter.com/FdEvNiUZYl
— Anna Massoglia (@annalecta) May 17, 2021

Blue Origin: Petition To Not

artappraiser — Fri, 11 Jun 2021 05:50:46 +0000

In reply to Tax for thee not for me: Propublica outs the rich

Blue Origin: Petition To Not Allow Jeff Bezos Re-Entry To Earth - Sign the Petition! https://t.co/Kw4jsKyefm via @Change
— The Bern Report (@TheBernReport) June 11, 2021