In a remarkable coincidence, ProPublica released the tax return data on Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos and a slew of billionaires, so as to be perfectly timed with the Biden Administration’s unveiling of the most progressive tax increase agenda in recent memory. ProPublica also advised that they are unaware of the source of this leak, adding themselves to the long list of contemporary “journalists” who no longer honor things like integrity, morals, verification of sources and the rule of law. Of course the finger pointing and misdirection has followed, including such absurd speculation that it was a “hack” of the IRS by foreign agents. Uh-huh. But what exactly would Russia or China have to gain by exposing the tax data on America’s wealthiest taxpayers? That’s right: nothing. And whatwould the Biden Administration have to gain by furthering the myth that wealthy Americans are somehow gaming the system and not paying their “fair share”? Now you’re catching on. It is most likely that some mole buried deep within the most aggressive tax collection agency on the planet was a good little progressive soldier and leaked the information on cue. And tell me again that there is no such thing as a “deep state”. As Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal pointed out, “for decades the GOP has understood that the term federal employee is increasingly interchangeable with registered democrat”. So what did this riveting expose tell us? Well, again it depends on which side of the economic spectrum you live, and whether you actually believe all the socialist drivel that has spewed forth from the likes of Senators Warren and Sanders over the past year, despite her foray into cultural appropriation and his wife’s adventures in capitalism. Go ahead, look it up. It may also be dependent on whether or not you’re an idiot. Not to ruin the punch line for you, but ProPublica discovered that wealthy individuals not only pay the lowest amount of taxes permissible by law, but that they also take advantage of legal deductions such as business expenses, donations to charities and loan interest, as well as paying a lower tax rate on capital gains. Shocking. They are also more likely, by virtue of their wealth, to retain small armies of accountants and attorneys who scour the tax code to find what the Biden Administration would call loopholes, but the rest of civilized America calls rules of the game. And a big part of their wealth is paper. Stock, real estate and business holdings are investments that have value, but they are not income. Only when those investments are realized do they become taxable income. Thus wealth is not income and we do not tax wealth. At least not yet. Proposals by the aforementioned Senators of the hypocrite party would like to do just that, no doubt creating another level of bureaucracy to assess your assets, assign you a wealth value and tax it. Investments not yet realized would be taxed based on their theoretical value and things like real estate, art collections, cars, your home and even the furniture in it would be audited and assigned value by a wealth czar, often engaging in double dipping, taxing things on which you have already paid a tax. As we have reported in these pages, dystopian tax schemes such as a “tree tax” and a “view tax” have recently been hatched in search of revenue to feed the voracious beast that is progressive government. There’s likely more on the way.
But really, will any of this affect Monsieurs Buffett and Bezos, darlings of the progressive left? Of course not. This ploy is designed to cast a wider net, to ensnare the “not so rich”, those poor pretenders that are climbing the economic ladder, working hard, likely small business owners who will never attain those stratospheric levels of reward seen by the uber-wealthy. To put it in perspective, let’s look at those top tiers of earners, shall we? When one thinks of the truly wealthy, the top 1%, the likes of Buffett,Gates and Bezos come to mind, as do the elites in the entertainment and sports industry: Oprah, LeBron, Tom andGiselle, for example. But in actuality, this exclusive grouplives in rarified air in the top one-tenth of one percent of earners, defined as making more than $2.8 M per year. They’re doing just fine, thank you for asking. But the pilloried top 1% is actually defined as those earning more than $737,697 per year, making the lower tiers of this bracket collecting only pocket change compared to the members at the top of the heap. Entry into the top 5% requires only an annual income of $309,348 and joining the top 10% requires the paltry sum of only $158,002. And recall that Biden is currently defining “rich” as those making four hundred thousand dollars per year. As we know, that definition inevitably creeps lower in search of more revenue for the government coffers and was as low as $200000 in the Clinton years. The real money lies in the middle class. Do you feel rich? Your government thinks you are.
So you’ve reached the top 10% of wage earners. Congratulations. You commute into New York City. You live in New Jersey, or perhaps Westchester County where the average home price is $622,000 and you have a hefty mortgage. Your property taxes are amongst the highest in the country at $12000 annually. School taxes bump that closer to $20000. Your state sales tax is 8%. Your state income tax is 8.82%. County taxes make that closer to 13%. Your federal income tax, in that top 10% of earners,places you in the 32-35% tax bracket. Your de rigeur domestic SUV cost $35000 and the wife’s Subaru was at least that again. They are both financed. Because you are a high earner, you have a Cadillac health insurance plan that now costs $2000 a month. Thank you, Obamacare. Your youngest child is in daycare so your wife can work. Daycare averages just over $600 per week, per child. Your oldest child was just accepted to a private college with a tuition of $65000 a year. You don’t qualify for any student aid based on your income. Do the math. How far is your salary going to get you and your family of four, rich boy?
America already has the most progressive tax code in the world, and it is aggressively enforced. The top 1% that Biden is desperately trying to convince you are not paying their “fair share” actually pays 39.5% of federal taxes. To put this in perspective, the bottom half of wage earners, 50%, pay only 2.8% of the federal tax burden, 14 times less than the top 1% although they represent a 50 times greater percentage of earners. We are, in effect, being punished for success with a disincentive to work harder, to earn more money. And gird your loins America; it is about to get worse. A lot worse.
No comments:
Post a Comment