Sanders and Colleagues Introduce Legislation to End Rigged Tax Code as Inequality Increases

[Donkees]

https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/sanders-and-colleagues-introduce-legislation-to-end-rigged-tax-code-as-inequality-increases/

Excerpt:

WASHINGTON, March 25 – In a continued effort to combat rising economic inequality, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday introduced two pieces of legislation to end our rigged tax code and ensure the wealthiest people and largest corporations pay their fair share – the For the 99.5% Act and the Corporate Tax Dodging Prevention Act.

Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) are joining Sen. Sanders as original cosponsors of the For the 99.5% Act in the Senate, which has garnered the support of over 50 national organizations. In the House, the companion estate tax legislation will be introduced by Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.), while Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) will introduce the bill on offshore corporate tax dodging.

The For the 99.5% Act is a progressive estate tax on the fortunes of the top 0.5 percent of Americans, while the Corporate Tax Dodging Prevention Act will eliminate tax breaks and loopholes that encourage corporations to shift jobs and profits offshore. This comes a week after the reintroduction of the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act, and ahead of today’s 11:00 a.m. Senate Budget Committee hearing on “Ending a Rigged Tax Code: The Need to Make the Wealthiest People and Largest Corporations Pay Their Fair Share of Taxes.”

“Unbelievably, the United States today has more income and wealth inequality than almost any major country on Earth,” said Sen. Sanders. “This inequality has only deepened with the economic crisis brought on by COVID and by a tax system that allows for billionaires to pay less in taxes than working people across the country. From a moral, economic, and political perspective our nation will not thrive when so few have so much and so many have so little. We need a tax system which demands the billionaire class to pay its fair share of taxes and which reduces the obscene level of wealth inequality in America.”

The Corporate Tax Dodging Prevention Act would raise over $2.3 trillion in revenue by preventing corporations from shifting their profits offshore to avoid paying U.S. taxes. It would also restore the top corporate tax rate to 35% – where it was before Trump became president.

Today, corporations are paying as little as nothing on profits they claimed to make overseas. The situation has become so absurd that one five-story office building in the Cayman Islands is the “home” to about 20,000 corporations.

According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, just the offshore loophole closing portions of this bill would raise over $1 trillion through 2031.

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1. I have always thought that stock buy backs by corps need to be taxes somehow.