OMNI EQUITABLE TAXES ANTHOLOGY #1

 

OMNI

EQUITABLE TAXES ANTHOLOGY #1

April 15, 2024

Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology

HTTPS://omnicenter.org/donate

Move to Amend  4-15-24 

      

We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.
       - Leona Helmsley, billionaire real estate tax dodger

Source: Ralph Nader images

Happy Tax Day! Only kidding.

The very rich and corporations try harder and are more effective in general in avoiding paying taxes than the rest of us. Here are a few numbers reflecting current tax priorities, legislative responses to promote tax fairness and economic and political equality, and how we, "the little people," can become more active in promoting tax fairness and beyond.

0 - Number of people who enjoy paying taxes. 

19,113 - Federal taxes paid by the average tax payer in the U.S. in 2023.
5,110 - Federal taxes paid by the average tax payer in the U.S. in 2023 specifically allocated for “militarism.”
      Five examples from the average tax bill paid:
Pentagon contractors ($1,759) vs. the Child Tax Credit ($110).

1.     Lockheed Martin ($249) vs. renewable energy ($11).

2.     Boeing ($87) vs. the Federal Aviation Administration ($23).

3.     Federal prisons ($32.29) vs. substance use and mental health programs ($31.69).

4.     Foreign militaries ($112) vs. wildfire management ($14).

150 billion - The amount (at least) in taxes evaded by the nation’s billionaires and millionaires (Leona Helmsley disciples) each year, according to the IRS. The US has 737 billionaires with a combined wealth of $5.529 trillion as of March 2024, an 87.6 percent increase of $2.58 trillion from 2020.

2.2 trillion - Increase in wealth in dollars for U.S. billionaires since the Trump-GOP tax cuts (the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017) was passed, a significant factor in the national debt rising by around $8 trillion during Trump’s term. Individual tax cuts are set to expire at the end of 2025, unless extended, though some corporate tax cuts will continue.

41 - Number of states where the richest 1% of families have a lower tax rate than everyone else.

64 - Number of corporations that paid an average effective tax rate of just 2.8% (the legal rate is 21%) on $667 billion cumulative domestic profits while paying their executives over $15 billion. Thirty-five of the 64 corporations paid less in federal income taxes between 2018 and 2022 than they paid their top five executives. Their combined federal income tax bills amounted to a negative $1.8 billion - meaning they received a refund.

28 - Percentage proposed by President Biden in his “budget blueprint” for the corporate tax rate (currently at 21%). Tax justice activists call for higher rates and for ways to prevent corporations from effectively paying only a fraction of the amount.

4098 - Senate bill number of the Corporate Tax Dodging Prevention Act, sponsored by Bernie Sanders, aimed at closing tax loopholes, ending tax breaks for offshoring jobs, and halting profit hiding in tax havens. The Act could generate over $1 trillion alone by reducing the hiding of corporate profits.

7749 – House bill number of the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act of 2024, sponsored by Rep. Pramila Jayapal. The act would impose a 2 cent tax on every dollar of wealth in excess of $50 million and another 1 cent of every dollar more than $1 billion. The Senate version is S.4017, sponsored by Elizabeth Warren.

16.4 billion - Total dollar amount spent in the 2020 federal elections by federal candidates, political parties and independent interest groups. Much of this was donated (more like invested) by the super rich and corporate entities to candidates, SuperPACs or “dark money” organizations for political advertising. The massive increase in wealth among the super rich and business corporations over the last 4 years due, in part, to tax cuts will undoubtedly result in a significant increase in 2024. After all, political spending in elections is constitutionally-protected “free speech” and corporations are legally defined as “persons,” leading to a further decline in political voices of people unable to make financial contributions. Increased corporate wealth from tax cuts also means more resources for political lobbying and legal actions to protect, if not expand, corporate constitutional rights.

54 - House bill number of  the We the People Amendment, Move to Amend’s proposal to abolish all corporate constitutional rights and political money defined as free speech.

1 - That’s you, the one person with more power over yourself than anyone else. You have control with limitations over your time, energy and financial priorities.

0 - Percentage likelihood that significant positive change toward tax fairness (i.e. where others besides “the little people pay taxes”), justice in all its forms, legitimate democracy or a livable world will occur unless individual action and coming together to create a powerful and authentically democratic movement for democracy. That’s what Move to Amend is seeking to build. Join us. To volunteer, email info@movetoamend.org.To donate, go to movetoamend.org/donate. 

In solidarity, Shelly, George, Daniel, Jennie, Keyan, Michael, Katie, Margaret, Alfonso, Jessica, Jason, Tara, Ambrosia, Cole, & Greg.  Move to Amend National Team
https://www.movetoamend.org/   (Share this email using this URL)

Move to Amend · PO

Rich

 Tax-free day for the ultra-wealthy.

Editor.  Mronline.org (4-21-23).  New data show the wealthiest Americans have stashed $2 trillion in offshore tax havens, as the government relaxes efforts to combat tax evasion.

 

Radical Taxation

By Vanessa Williamson, Dissent Magazine.  Popular Revolution.org (8-21-22).This spring, legislators of both parties, from Connecticut to Georgia, responded to higher energy prices with “gas tax holidays,” temporary tax reductions for consumers that provide an additional windfall to the immensely profitable fossil fuel industry at precisely the moment when we should be ending the global warming economy. Thirty-six years after Grover Norquist first introduced the “taxpayer protection pledge”—by which thousands of legislators have committed to oppose all tax increases—American policymaking remains trapped in an anti-tax paradigm that leaves us unable to cope... -more-

 

TAX THE SUPER-WEALTHY

The urgent need to tax billionaires out of existence

Editor.  Mronline.org (8-31-21).

A wealth tax would raise badly-needed revenue. More importantly, it could reduce the fortunes—and power—of billionaires.    

 

Dems’ gift to their Wall Street donors

Editor.  Mronline.org (8-8-22).

Democrats were set to mostly preserve, not close, a Wall Street tax loophole, before they dropped it entirely.

 

CORPORATE TAXES

raise the damn corporate tax rate

Public Citizen via salsalabs.org  4-20-21
to me

Four years ago, Donald Trump and congressional Republicans — with Senator Mitch McConnell leading the charge — rammed through a regressive tax law that overwhelmingly benefited billionaires and Big Business.

· Officially named the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017,” it should have been called the “Rich Get Richer and the Rest of Us Get Stiffed” law.

· Perhaps most egregiously, Trump and McConnell slashed the official corporate tax rate from 35% down to 21% — the lowest it has been since the Great Depression.

· Of course, many corporations exploit “loophole” after “loophole” to get away with paying far less than that, or even nothing at all.

Now — as part of President Biden’s infrastructure plan — Democrats have a chance to restore some balance and push Corporate America to pay something closer to its fair share.

The least we should do is bring the corporate tax rate back up to where it was (35%) before Trump and McConnell slashed it.

But President Biden’s proposal is far more modest, raising the corporate tax rate to just 28%.

Predictably, Big Business is whining that this is unfair and counterproductive. (Including many of the same corporations currently getting accolades for their supposed commitment to social justice.)

And there’s talk of accepting a “compromise” corporate tax rate of just 25%.

Tell President Biden:

If we’re going to raise funds to pay for infrastructure, then super-profitable corporations should — and can afford to — pay their fair share. After all, Corporate America relies on roads and bridges, electricity grids and water/sewage systems, communications and IT networks, the public education system, fire and police services, the public health system, and other essential infrastructure to do business. Do not settle for a 25% corporate tax rate.

Add your name.

Thanks for taking action.

For progress,

- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen

 

Covert and Konczal.  “Tax the Filthy Rich!”  The Nation (Oct. 28/Nov. 4, 2019).

 

THE MIDDLE AND POOR (see above various proposals for equity from Sanders, Warren, et al.)
This is how we invest in working families:
Craig Johnson <info@americansfortaxfairness.org>4-23-19

Dick,

We have a two-pronged approach to passing real progressive tax reform that creates an economy that works for all of us.

1.    Fight on Capitol Hill to pass a Fair Taxes Now plan that repeals Trump’s tax cuts and goes far beyond that to make the rich and corporations pay their fair share.

2.    Rally the American people around our proposals that raise the revenue needed to invest in working families and our country’s future.

Based on ATF’s new report, “Fair Taxes Now: Revenue Options for a Fair Tax System,” we’ve developed an interactive online calculator that lets you pick your priorities.

Do you want to strengthen the Affordable Care Act? That could cost $300 billion and could be easily paid for by raising income taxes on the richest Americans.

What about providing quality, affordable child care to working families? That could cost $1.2 trillion, paid for by taxing investment income of the wealthy the same way we tax the income of working families.

Read Frank’s email below and then pitch in $5 or more to power our movement to fight for a progressive tax system that invests in our country’s future.

Together, we’re leading the movement to create a tax system that puts working families first by making the rich and corporations pay their fair share.

Thank you,
Craig Johnson
Digital Director 
Americans for Tax Fairness

From: Frank Clemente 
Date: Fri, Apr 19, 2019
Subject: This is how we invest in working families:

Dick,

When these profitable Fortune 500 companies pay their fair share in taxes, we can invest in our country’s future. Donate to ATF today to be your voice in Washington, fighting back against 7,000 Wall Street lobbyists.

 

What is preventing the U.S. from making a major new investment in our country’s future? 7,000 corporate lobbyists in Washington who helped Donald Trump ram his tax scam through Congress.[1]

And they got a great return on their investment.

A new report from our close allies at ITEP shows that 60 profitable Fortune 500 companies avoided paying any federal income taxes in 2018.[2]

Amazon reported $11 billion in profits and got a tax rebate worth $129 million. General Motors’ 2018 profits were $4.3 billion, and it received a $104 million tax rebate. Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly made $598 million but got a $54 million tax rebate.

That means you alone paid more federal income taxes than all three of these major corporations combined.

But, thanks to a major new report, Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) has the solution! In the report, “Fair Taxes Now: Revenue Options for a Fair Tax System,” ATF details 40 ways to raise trillions of dollars from the rich and corporations for critical needs.[3]

We’re working hard with our allies in Congress to make these policy proposals the foundation of progressive tax reform. We’re helping lawmakers craft legislation that we hope will be voted on this year. And if passed, these proposals will allow us to invest big time in our country’s future.

Even if they do not become law this year, they will help set the table for a momentous debate in 2020 about the need to make the rich and corporations pay their fair share so we can protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and invest in education, affordable healthcare and housing, roads and bridges, green energy and more.  

Donate to Americans for Tax Fairness today to support this critical research and education effort, which is powering our fight for progressive tax reform and an economy that works for all of us.

ATF proposes to raise trillions of dollars in new revenue by:

· Reinvigorating the corporate tax code by raising rates, closing loopholes and repealing incentives to offshore profits and outsource jobs

· Ending tax breaks for wealthy businesses, such as special real-estate provisions that have benefited President Trump

· Raising taxes on the super-rich, both on high incomes and accumulated wealth

· Reforming taxation of investment income so that wealth generated on Wall Street is taxed more like work

· Tapping new revenue sources, such as a tiny tax on Wall Street speculation

This research and public education campaign is only possible with thousands of supporters like you across the country. While Wall Street and corporate America have high-priced Washington lobbyists fighting for corporate tax breaks, you have Americans for Tax Fairness demanding a fairer tax system that puts working families first.

Pitch in $5 or more today to power our efforts and to be your voice in Washington, fighting against the 7,000 Wall Street lobbyists.

Together, we’re demanding the rich and corporations pay their fair share. And when they do, we can truly invest in a future for all Americans.

Thank you,

Frank Clemente 
Executive Director 
Americans for Tax Fairness

[1] “Final Tally: More Than 7,000 Lobbyists Worked on Taxes in 2017,” Public Citizen, Jan. 31, 2018   [2] "Corporate Tax Avoidance Remains Rampant Under New Tax Law," Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, April 11, 2019   [3] “Fair Taxes Now: Revenue Options for a Fair Tax System,” Americans for Tax Fairness, April 12, 2019  

Paid for and authorized by Americans for Tax Fairness

 

Katrina Vanden Heuvel.  “Time for a Wealth Tax!.”  The Nation (Feb. 25/March 4, 2019).  Mainly about Elizabeth Warren’s new proposal.

 

REAGAN AND GOP TAX CUTS

Monica Prasad.  Starving the Beast: Ronald Reagan and the Tax Cut Revolution.  Russell Sage, 2018. 

Origins of the GOP’s relentless tax cuts, and how this is a uniquely US phenomenon.

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #174, APRIL 15, 2024.

 

OMNI CLIMATE MEMO MONDAYS, #174, APRIL 15, 2024.  Compiled by Dick Bennett.

 

Colin Beavan.  No Impact Man.  2009.
Nick Dearden.  Climate-Wrecking Energy Charter Treaty.
For The Nation magazine’s climate coverage, see The Nation.com/climate-update-signup.

 

Colin Beavan.  No Impact Man.  2009.
     I’m still unpacking boxes of books and found and reread a unique and inspiring recounting of one person’s attempt with wife and daughter during one year in NYC to do no harm to the environment and climate: no trash, no carbon dioxide emissions, no toxins!  That’s remarkable enough for recommending the book to you:  No Impact Man by Colin Beavan.  But two inseparable aspects of the book make it an extraordinary forerunner in the struggle to end use of fossil fuels: its early date of publication—2009--based upon his forerunner experiment in 2006, and his awareness of climate change leading up to then that motivated his decision to buy no produce from distant lands, buy nothing new, no products in packaging, use no elevators, no subway, no air conditioning. 

     Sounds impossible, but he was prepared.  He was not a scientist, but he was reading scientific reports.  He summarizes the news about global warming in the 1980s:  “We can’t maintain this way of life, the scientists said, the world can’t sustain it.  The ice caps will melt, the sea levels will rise, there will be droughts—or, in short, the planet will be done for and millions of people will suffer.”  He knew about the Kyoto Treaty. The Kyoto Protocol (December 11, 1997) was an international treaty committing states to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.   Beavan writes:  “The countries of the world had negotiated the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change, assigning mandatory targets for the reduction of greenhouse gases to signatory nations.”  He also knew that “the United States, a signatory to the protocol, as well as the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases, refused to ratify it.”  And he knew the rapid population increase (6.5 billion people then) and the ravenous market capitalism of the wealthy countries were major causes.

    Finally, 18 years ago, at the age of 42, while ascending in an elevator and thinking about his “way of life…killing the planet,” and about “companies like Exxon” using “stealth PR tactics to discredit the organizations that try to warn us,” Colin Beavan pulled his personal emergency alarm and decided to “go zero carbon.”

   In 2009 he was still trying.  Borrow my copy or go to UAF Mullins Main Library main stacks, or buy a copy and pass it on.

 

Nick Dearden .  “Corporate power is killing the planet.”  Tribune  (March 25, 2024).  Editor.  mronline.org (3-27-24). 

In the 1950s, a system of corporate courts was created to allow Western businesses to sue the Global South for threatening their profits—and now fossil fuel giants are using it to stop any country from fighting the climate crisis. 
Capitalism, Climate Change, Imperialism, InequalityAmericas, Britain, Europe, Global, Iran, Middle East, United StatesNewswireEnergy Charter Treaty (ECT), Fossil Fuels, Global South, investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS)
However much the British government plays fast and loose with our future by treating climate change as a political football, there is a reality it can’t deny: climate action is necessary. That’s why, against all its better instincts, it announced last month that Britain would exit the most climate-wrecking treaty of all–the Energy Charter Treaty.

The Energy Charter Treaty is the product of a previous era. It was invented in the 1990s to protect Western energy interests in the countries of the former Soviet Union. At its heart is a mechanism called investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS–a kind of corporate court system which allows transnational businesses and investors to sue governments for regulatory changes which damage their bottom line.

Countries have been inserting these ISDS clauses into trade and investment deals for decades now. They were dreamt up by oil barons and financiers back in the 1950s. As countries across the world broke free of imperial ties, these corporate executives worried about how their economic interests could be protected from national liberation governments which were coming to power in the Global South. . . .

More than anything, it’s now clear that the debate on climate change has shifted decisively, to a point where there is at least space to argue for radical economic transformation. Last week’s victory is a definite step forward.

[This complicated but clear essay explains the high-level machinations by corporations to rig the legal system, specifically regarding treaties, in their favor.  It’s upbeat because the corporate grip on the Energy Charter Treaty is now being challenged.  –D]

Nick Dearden is the director of Global Justice Now.   Energy Charter Treaty (ECT)Fossil FuelsGlobal Southinvestor-state dispute settlement (ISDS)

 Summary of preceding two items:  We as individuals can and should change our behavior asap: look at yourself as a leader;  and our neo-liberal corporate economic system of growth and extraction must be changed also quickly: get better leaders.

For a biweekly collection of The Nation’s top climate coverage, go to The Nation.com/climate-update-signup.

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #172, APRIL 10, 2024.

 

OMNI WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, #172, APRIL 10, 2024.  Compiled by Dick Bennett 

Joel Kovel.  Red Hunting in the Promised Land.

TOM ENGELHARDT.   “A Slow-Motion World War III?”

 

(Sovietphobia.)  Joel Kovel.  Red Hunting in the Promised Land.

In the wake of the Cold War, an eminent social critic examines the roots of America’s anticommunist frenzy.   IWW.
“The most original and revealing study of the fear-and-loathing obsession–anticommunism–that has driven [America] loony for most of this century. Every aspect of our lives, public and private, has been debased by this plague. Kovel’s book, in brilliantly showing cause, may offer some sort of cure as we approach a new and hopefully sane century.”–Studs Terkel, author of Working.

“The United States, by comparative standards, has been an unusually free society, but with powerful repressive strains that are deeply rooted in its intellectual and political culture. Joel Kovel’s thoughtful and enlightening exploration of these crucial themes helps us not only to understand our past but also to shape a better future.”–Noam Chomsky, author of Consequences of Capitalism.

“Kovel, a psychiatrist and professor of social studies at Bard College, traces the evolution of anticommunism in this country from the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 to the collapse of the ‘evil empire’ in the age of Reagan and Bush. How, Kovel wonders, did the United States, ‘of all the capitalist powers the least threatened by Communism,’ come to be ‘the most floridly anticommunist?’ He offers psychoportraits of such leading ideologues as Father Charles Coughlin, George Kennan, John Foster Dulles, J. Edgar Hoover, and Joe McCarthy to demonstrate ‘how Communist-hating is used opportunistically as an instrument to secure power and wealth.’” Thomas Appleton Jr., Kentucky Historical Soc., Frankfort

TOM ENGELHARDT.   “A Slow-Motion World War III?” MARCH 27, 2024.      FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

Image by UX Gun.

I’ve been describing this world of ours, such as it is, for almost 23 years at TomDispatch. I’ve written my way through three-and-a-half presidencies — god save us, it could be four in November! I’ve viewed from a grave (and I mean that word!) distance America’s endlessly disastrous wars of this century. I’ve watched the latest military budget hit almost $900 billion, undoubtedly on its way toward a cool trillion in the years to come, while years ago the whole “national security” budget (though “insecurity” would be a better word) soared to well over the trillion-dollar mark.

I’ve lived my whole life in an imperial power. Once, in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was even “the lone superpower,” the last great power on planet Earth, or so its leaders believed. I then watched how, in a world without great-power dangers, it continued to invest ever more of our tax dollars in our military. A “peace dividend“? Who needed that? And yet, in the decades that followed, by far the most expensive military on planet Earth couldn’t manage to win a single war, no less its Global War on Terror. In fact, in this century, while fighting vain or losing conflicts across significant parts of the planet, it slowly but all too obviously began to go down the tubes, or perhaps I mean (if you don’t mind a few mixed metaphors) come apart at the seams?

And it never seems to end, does it? Imagine that 32 years after the U.S. became the last superpower on Planet Earth, in a devastating kind of political chaos, this country might indeed reelect a man who imagines himself running a future American “dictatorship” — his very word for it! — even if, publicly at least, just for a single day. . . .   MORE click on title

[The most curious aspect of this pathology is the transformation of Sovietphobia—plausibly explained by its imagined threat to US capitalism—into Russophobia, with Russia, like the US, a capitalist oligarchy.  –Dick]