Well… the sheer volume (in all its meanings) of work going on around the house this week finally got to me — hard to find a quiet moment during the day to think, much less attempt to write. And once the workers had departed for the day, there were other tasks to attend to. All of this offered as my excuse for producing only one verse for the week.
But it was in response to a lollapalooza of a story!
A Pain in the Assets (June 12, 2021)
ProPublica released the first in a series of reports detailing minimal income the ultra-wealthy claim to receive — despite massive increases in their net worth year over year — and therefore how little (or no) federal income tax they pay:
ProPublica has obtained a vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data on the tax returns of thousands of the nation’s wealthiest people, covering more than 15 years. The data provides an unprecedented look inside the financial lives of America’s titans, including Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg. It shows not just their income and taxes, but also their investments, stock trades, gambling winnings and even the results of audits.
Taken together, it demolishes the cornerstone myth of the American tax system: that everyone pays their fair share and the richest Americans pay the most. The IRS records show that the wealthiest can — perfectly legally — pay income taxes that are only a tiny fraction of the hundreds of millions, if not billions, their fortunes grow each year…
America’s billionaires avail themselves of tax-avoidance strategies beyond the reach of ordinary people. Their wealth derives from the skyrocketing value of their assets, like stock and property. Those gains are not defined by U.S. laws as taxable income unless and until the billionaires sell.
To capture the financial reality of the richest Americans, ProPublica undertook an analysis that has never been done before. We compared how much in taxes the 25 richest Americans paid each year to how much Forbes estimated their wealth grew in that same time period.
We’re going to call this their true tax rate.
The results are stark. According to Forbes, those 25 people saw their worth rise a collective $401 billion from 2014 to 2018. They paid a total of $13.6 billion in federal income taxes in those five years, the IRS data shows. That’s a staggering sum, but it amounts to a true tax rate of only 3.4%.
It’s a completely different picture for middle-class Americans, for example, wage earners in their early 40s who have amassed a typical amount of wealth for people their age. From 2014 to 2018, such households saw their net worth expand by about $65,000 after taxes on average, mostly due to the rise in value of their homes. But because the vast bulk of their earnings were salaries, their tax bills were almost as much, nearly $62,000, over that five-year period.
[Read more here: https://bit.ly/3ge1bua]
Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson are racing to be the first billionaire to go to space. Bill Gates transferred $3 billion (from his $145 billion fortune) to his soon-to-be ex-wife as a downpayment on their divorce. Elon Musk touted cryptocurrency to stoke a rise in its value — and then advised against such an investment in order to cash in on his holdings.
Me? Well… I received a royalty check in the staggering amount of $5.37 this week for selling a copy of one of my books in Q2.
1099, anyone?
The new metal roof is on, with siding and sheetrock installation up next. I wonder what Elon Musk thinks about investing in earplugs?
Until next week,
JB