|
|
It’s the big Presstitute news. The crime syndicate running Washington passed a bill that the mainstream media shills—like The New York Times, the Toilet Paper of Record—championed on its front-page headline: SENATE VOTE PUTS CLIMATE ACTION IN REACH.
Drudge Report hyped it as: BIDEN’S BIG WIN
Yes, Biden’s Big Win… and the people’s big losses.
The bottom line is the bottom line for the “Bigs”—that buy out the politicians running the nation—who won big, while the plantation workers of Slavelandia will pay the price for the massive Orwellian labeled “Inflation Reduction Bill.”
As WSWS.org wrote today, not only will the bill “worsen the climate crisis,” which it was supposed to address, it makes bad matters worse: “One expression of the complete subordination of both parties to the corporate-financial, including Big Oil, is the insertion into the bill of provisions massively expanding exploration and drilling for oil and gas on federal lands and offshore regions, including both the Gulf of Mexico and waters off Alaska.”
“It’s One Big Club And You Ain’t In It”
The new bill was also supposed to pull back on the tax overhaul legislation pushed by President Donald Trump in 2017 that gave him, and the other members of the “Bigs,” more than $1 trillion in tax cuts… which the Tax Policy Center said the 1 percent reaped 82 percent of the tax deal benefits.
And the bill passed Sunday was also supposed to end the “carried interest” scheme that gives the nation’s money junkies who control the equity markets—that are labeled “hedge funds” and “private equity groups”—that allows them to pay about half of what they owe. But that was stripped from the bill.
The champion of the removal was Arizona Democrat Kyrsten Sinema who was bought off with over $2 million in campaign contributions over the past 5 years (aka, bribes and payoffs) from the hedge fund/private investor money junkies.
Calling a Spade a Spade. WSWS.org noted that those supporting the bill, like Senate Majority Moron Chuckie Schumer who declared the “The Senate is making history,” and West Virginia Joe Manchin, are all members of the “Club.” They also noted that the Democrat Manchin is “a coal business multi-millionaire and the Senate’s biggest recipient of campaign cash from the fossil fuel industry.”
Thus, they clearly note, “it would be very mistaken to believe that Manchin and Sinema are outliers when it comes to whoring for big business.”
WSWS.org also noted that “The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that Blackstone Chief Executive Stephen Schwarzman personally received nearly $150 million in carried interest and incentive-fee compensation in 2021 alone, according to securities filings. The managing director of government relations at Blackstone is Alex Katz, who for five years served as a senior adviser to—Chuck Schumer.”
Steal From The People
The IRS stands to receive $79.6 billion in funding to approve the hiring of up to 87,000 more employees over the next 10 years after the Senate on Sunday passed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
The debate was tense, and Vice President Kamala Harris was the deciding vote. The $740 billion package raises corporate taxes, reduces the federal deficit, and allocates money for climate change.
The funding for the IRS will help Washington pull in an additional $203.7 billion in revenue during the 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office said, according to The Associated Press.
There was a clear divide on the issue between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate. Democrats said the additional employees would see to it that major corporations pay their fair share while Republicans say mom-and-pop shops will be the ultimate businesses that pay.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, told the AP that the massive investment will be an essential tool to make sure the U.S. “has a rational tax policy.”
“This will give us a chance to raise the revenue from wealthy tax cheats who are getting out of paying what they owe. (See “BILLIONAIRES BEAT TAXES: LITTLE PEOPLE PAY,” “BILLIONAIRE TAX SCOFFLAWS PLOW SAVINGS INTO WEBS OF CONTROL,” “OUTGUNNED” IRS REPORTS $1 TRILLION SHORTFALL,” “RICHEST AMERICANS BEAT THE TAXMAN” and “RICHEST AMERICANS ARE BIGGEST TAX CHEATS TREASURY REPORT FINDS.”)
The funding is significant, and The Washington Free Beacon reported that under the bill, the IRS will employ more people than the Pentagon, State Department, FBI, and Border Patrol combined. The 80,000 new employees would more than double the current staff.
We reported in September 2021 that one of the Biden administration’s main domestic goals was to close the country’s $7 trillion tax gap. The key part of that initiative is to invest $80 billion in the tax-collecting department over the next decade because most of the underreporting is done by those who make the most income.
There were concerns that the plan would violate the Fourth Amendment which protects against unreasonable searches. The American Banker reported at the time that the plan could force banks to have to report any transaction data for accounts “with at least $600 of inflows or outflows annually.” The current bill does not include that proposal.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, criticized the plan and said it was ill-advised given that so many Americans are struggling under the weight of historic inflation.
“In a time of inflation, Democrats also want to spend $80 billion to roughly double the size of the IRS so they can take more money out of the American people through harassment and audits, using taxpayer money to make taxpayers’ lives worse,” he said, according to the AP.
The money allocated to the IRS would increase the agency’s budget by more than 600 percent, the Free Beacon reported. The IRS received $12.6 billion in 2021.
The WSJ said individuals who pull in more than $400,000 a year should expect more audits under the plan that would earmark about $40 billion for enforcement, $30 billion for improved operations, and $3 billion for taxpayer services.
Citing the Government Accountability Office, the WSJ said the number of audits of taxpayers who pull in more than $500,000 a year fell by about 75 percent from 2010 to 2019. The U.S. could be missing out on about $1 trillion in revenue from these underreported taxes, the report said.
Garrett Watson, an analyst at the Tax Foundation, told the paper that the IRS’s total funding could surge 50 percent if Congress keeps its normal annual appropriations pace over the next 10 years.
TRENDPOST: It is worth noting that the new bill could harm the cryptocurrency market because increased IRS enforcement could be far-reaching. Bitcoin seemed unaffected early Monday and was trading at $23,392.90 at 1:31 a.m. ET.
The IRS released a draft image of a Form 1040 for the 2022 tax year that asks: “At any time during 2022, did you: (a) receive (as a reward, award, or compensation); or (b) sell, exchange, gift, or otherwise dispose of a digital asset (or a financial interest in a digital asset)?”
TREND FORECAST: The BIGS will continue to avoid paying their fair share despite getting tax breaks as they did under the Trump administration when he lowered rates.
As we note, according to the Tax Policy Center, the one percent received 82 percent of the tax cut benefits.
With the IRS getting more revenue, they will target lower- and middle-class citizens who, unlike the very rich, lack the financial resources to fight the tax man.
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University found that in fiscal year 2021, households that earn less than $25,000 are five times as likely to be audited by the IRS than everyone else.