From Liberty Underground News Service, 4-19-11
KZ
It has been made difficult for the working class to cheat on taxes. Taxes are taken out of their pay, so they never see it. It is called “income tax,” and the rich don’t pay it. Under income, most wealthy Americans report zero. They put their revenue down as “capital gains,” at a much lower rate than would be “income.”
Social Security, or FICA as it is listed on the pay stub, is a proportionately large part of the paycheck of the working poor for whom every dime goes to survival needs. The rich don’t pay it on their capital gains, having their sycophants in Congress spend Social Security Trust money on their corporate welfare projects like stealth bombers over the decades. And of course, all this is before the rich have their accountants figure in the other massive number of write-offs which do not apply to the peasants.
There is an old joke that the poor may write off their cattle herds under the “cattle depletion allowance,” just like the rich, so the system is fair.
As billionaire Leona Helmsley put it, “Only the little people pay taxes.” Billionaire Warren Buffett challenged his fellow plutocrats that he would give a million dollars to the favorite charity of any of them who could show their tax rate was higher than that of their secretary, and none took him up on it, because they couldn’t. It’s difficult to imagine a more rigged system than ours.
The wealthiest one percent own about eighty percent of the investments, and trade them free of taxes. At LUV News, we are for taxing the trading of investments, which is a relatively painless way to balance the budget, since the rich will never know it if their accountants don’t tell them –Jack
