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The White House released a report on Wednesday showing that America’s 400 richest families pay an average 8.2 percent federal income tax rate from 2010 to 2018 compared to the average American who paid 13.3 percent, according to CNBC.
The late-great comedian George Carlin noted, “It’s one big club and you ain’t in it.”
The Trends Journal’s 15 June issue ran an article titled, “BILLIONAIRE TAX SCOFFLAWS PLOW SAVINGS INTO WEBS OF CONTROL.” that pointed to an in-depth report by ProPublica, a non-profit news organization. The report detailed how the wealthiest Americans engage in obscene tax avoidance schemes and records show that they have paid a relative pittance in taxes, all while their fortunes exploded during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Tax avoidance is accomplished in a myriad of ways. As an example, Carl Ichan, claimed interest off huge loans that were being leveraged to finance investments in 2016 and 2017. That helped him in claiming no Federal tax liability for several years, despite $544 million in adjusted gross income. The report pointed out how the 25 richest Americans paid a true federal tax rate of 3.4 percent from 2014 to 2018 while their combined net worth grew by $401 billion.
The 400 American families in the CNBC report represented the top 0.0002 percent of U.S. taxpayers. They were taxed on $1.8 trillion of income over the timeframe, the report said, citing the Council of Economic Advisers and Office of Management and Budget.
President Biden and Democrats want to increase taxes on the richest Americans to help pay for the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the $3.5 trillion reconciliation package trying to make its way through Congress.
“I’m sick and tired of the super-wealthy and giant corporations not paying their fair share in taxes,” the president tweeted.
The 400 wealthiest American households have a net worth ranging between $2.1 billion and $160 billion, according to The New York Times.
Administration officials posted on a blog post that the fact that the richest know how to game the system is not new, but they said more attention needs to be given to “the lack of transparency in our tax system.”
The Times pointed out that the Tax Policy Center, an independent group, claimed in a report that 1,400 of the country’s richest households paid an average effective tax rate of about 24 percent compared to 14 percent from the average taxpayer. Different metrics were used. The White House said that the wealthy can choose when their capital gains income appears on their income tax returns and “even prevent it from appearing.”
Slavelandia
Robin Kaiser-Schatzlein, a journalist who specializes in economic policy, wrote an op-ed in the paper that pointed to a report by the Institute for Policy Studies that showed “the 27 richest American dynastic families have seen their wealth grow by a combined 1,007 percent since 1983, while the typical family has seen its wealth increase only by 93 percent over nearly the same period. This divergence has only become more pronounced with the onset of the pandemic: Since March 2020, the median growth in the net worth of the top 10 families was 25 percent.”
TREND FORECAST: As we have long been reporting, the rich are getting richer and the “Bigs” keep getting bigger. Indeed, each week, we report instances where the money junky hedge funds, private equity groups and the already big company swallows another piece of the global economy.
Indeed, from 1 January through August this year, companies, private equity firms, and special-purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) have announced mergers and purchases worth more than $3.6 trillion worldwide, with about half—more than $1.8 trillion—in the U.S., data firm Dealogic reported.
With the desecration of the Robinson-Patman Act, Sherman Antitrust Act, Clayton Antitrust Act and Glass-Steagall Act by American politicians who get paid off with “campaign contributions,” aka bribes and payoffs… the small business, mom and pops, local banks, etc have been replaced by the few who own the most. Thus, the rich keep getting richer. (See “A MODEST TAX PROPOSAL FOR BILLIONAIRES,” and “BILLIONAIRES BEAT TAXES: LITTLE PEOPLE PAY.”)
However, as the Bigs grow bigger without limits, there is little need for advancement and innovation since there is no competition in the fight for market share. Overall, with a few selling the most, there are less consumer choices for wide varieties of products and services that would be available if there were more businesses in the sectors.
Therefore, from sounds and style, to health and wellbeing, from hi-tech to heavy industry… across the spectrum there will be OnTrendpreneur® opportunities to fill market gaps in virtually every business sector of society that the “Bigs” won’t see, or will be too small for them to invest in.