Tax avoidance is the practice of legally avoiding paying any more taxes than are owed. As time passes rich people and rich businesses get their lawyers and lobbyists to (1) buy congress and order it to pass more laws that increase the scope of what is legally not taxable, and (2) infiltrate the IRS as employees** who write new multi-billion dollar tax loopholes into existing laws. Over time, this could lead wealthy people and entities to pay little or no taxes. Over the years, both Dems and Repubs in congress and the White House have supported increasing tax avoidance loopholes for the rich and powerful.
Lawyers from top accounting firms do brief stints in the Treasury Department, with the expectation of big raises when they return
The largest U.S. accounting firms have perfected a remarkably effective behind-the-scenes system to promote their interests in Washington. Their tax lawyers take senior jobs at the Treasury Department, where they write policies that are frequently favorable to their former corporate clients, often with the expectation that they will soon return to their old employers. The firms welcome them back with loftier titles and higher pay, according to public records reviewed by The New York Times and interviews with current and former government and industry officials.
From their government posts, many of the industry veterans approved loopholes long exploited by their former firms, gave tax breaks to former clients and rolled back efforts to rein in tax shelters — with enormous impact.
After lobbying by PwC, a former PwC partner in the Trump Treasury Department helped write regulations that allowed large multinational companies to avoid tens of billions of dollars in taxes; he then returned to PwC.
An article the Rolling Stone published gives an update on tax avoidance:
AMERICA’S WEALTHIEST FAMILIES held an astounding $8.5 trillion in untaxed profits in 2022. According to a report from the nonprofit Americans for Tax Fairness, which analyzed Federal Reserve data, “one in every six dollars (18 percent of the nation’s unrealized gains is held by these roughly 64,000 ultra-wealthy households, who make up less than 0.05 percent of the population.” The report comes as the Supreme Court gears up to decide a case that could preemptively block any efforts to tax the wealth of billionaires.
Neener, neener, I got a bigger, . . . er boat!
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Joe Biden Just Delivered the SpeechDemocrats Have Been Desperate for Him to GiveBiden delivered a point-by-point denunciation of Donald Trump’s actions around Jan. 6, casting the 2024 election as a stark choice and calling his predecessor a ‘loser’
Time will tell if Biden stays on the attack and if it changes public opinion.
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A DAY AFTER a gunman killed a sixth grade student and wounded five other people at Perry High School northwest of Des Moines, Donald Trump returned to the state at a campaign event and told residents that they “have to get over it.”
During his speech at Sioux Center, Iowa, the former president gave his thoughts and prayers to the victims and their families, emphasizing that “we’re really with you as much as anybody can be.” After stating the tragedy was “terrible” and “horrible,” Trump insisted: “We have to get over it. We have to move forward. We have to move forward.”
Well, it appears that maybe the pro-mass school shooting crowd has moved sending beyond thoughts and prayers to really being with the directly affected as much as anybody can be.
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Trump attorney Alina Habba on Thursday suggested that Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh would “step up” and rule in favor of the former president because he “fought for” him.CNN host Phil Mattingly was taken aback as he played the clip on Friday.
“If a Democrat said that about the Justice Department or Merrick Garland or fill-in-the-blank here, there would be an absolute implosion. That's bonkers,” he said.
“She's saying the quiet part out loud,” replied panelist Jon Avlon. “She's saying that Brett Kavanaugh will step up and side with the president because he appointed him. That goes against every basic idea of law and independence of the judiciary. And frankly, it puts Kavanaugh in a bit of a box.”
“That’s not how this works,” tweeted national security attorney Bradley Moss. “Imagine for a second if a lawyer for Clinton, Obama or Biden said this. It’d be a massive scandal at Fox,” he added.
“Alina Habba saying the quid pro quo part out loud here,” wrote MSNBC legal analyst Katie Phang.
There it is folks. The situation can’t be much clearer. The authoritarian radical right openly and publicly expects partisan loyalty and political payback even from Supreme Court justices, not loyalty to the democracy or the Constitution and rule of law.
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