Tax Day Gifts for the Rich

[Joanne98]

When it comes to cutting taxes for the wealthy, President Bush can truly say, “Mission accomplished.”

The richest 1 percent of Americans received about $491 billion in tax breaks between 2001 and 2008. That’s nearly the same amount as U.S. debt held by China — $493 billion — in the form of Treasury securities.

Do you want our government to mortgage more of our nation’s future to finance tax breaks for the rich?

Tax cuts have already helped the richest 1 percent — whose annual incomes average about $1.5 million — increase their share of the nation’s income to a higher level than any year since 1928 on the eve of the Great Depression.

Wall Street’s five biggest firms paid “a record $39 billion in bonuses for 2007, a year when three of the companies suffered the worst quarterly losses in their history” and are eliminating thousands of jobs as losses mount from the subprime mortgage market collapse, reports Bloomberg.

The International Monetary Fund says the United States is in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Yet, we are borrowing money with interest to finance tax cuts for Wall Street executives.

For Americans below the top 1 percent, the tax cuts have been a giant swindle. The bottom 99 percent of taxpayers were left with a bill of $3.74 in debt for every $1 in federal tax cuts from 2001 to 2006, reports Citizens for Tax Justice. Only the top 1 percent came out ahead.

Meanwhile, the federal budgets for environmental protection and housing for the elderly have been slashed more than 20 percent since 2001, adjusted for inflation, the Community Development Block Grant budget is down 32 percent, and the lack of health insurance is an epidemic.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/15/8293/

[Cresent City Kid]

1. And that's before loop-holes

For those at the bottom, taxes are simple: they take more than you owe out of your check, and you file to get the difference. For those at the top the complexities of their dealings are dealt with in a maze of crazy tax laws designed to reduce tax, and obscure the breaks their getting. All the noise you hear about simplifying the tax code is an attempt to flatten the top rate DOWN to the lowest rate.

And all of that is what is supposed to be paid. More rich people and corporations than poor people get away with not paying what's legally required.