Massive Tax Break Vote On April 15 For Millionaires And Billionaires
On Tax Day, April 15, House Republicans will vote to repeal the federal estate tax. We’re hoping you can inform your readers about this outrageous tax giveaway to the wealthiest 0.2%. (Yes, zero point two percent – an individual’s estate has to be worth at least $5.4 million before it pays a cent in estate taxes, and $10.9 million for a couple’s estate).
The estate tax is an important check on the growing concentration of wealth in America, and generates needed revenues from those most able to pay. That makes its repeal such a perfect example of Republicans further stacking the deck in favor of the wealthy, and increasing economic inequality – they want a $269 billion tax giveaway for the rich, while average Americans work harder than ever to make ends meet.
The vote will occur on the day when most people have taxes on their minds. It also comes just a few weeks after House Republicans approved a budget that would slash $5 trillion of spending over the next 10 years mostly for services and benefits for working families, pushing millions of Americans deeper into poverty (without raising a dime of new revenue from the wealthy and corporations).
Republicans are voting to further rig the system in favor of the wealthy. The rest of us pay our fair share, but Republicans want tax breaks for rich heirs on money they didn’t even earn. That message needs to be heard.
More: Crooks and Liars
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.... rate for their entire life, after structuring their finances so that their income is in the form of capital gains instead of "ordinary income", (while working Americans who depend on earned income pay up to 39.6% in income tax plus 15.3% self-employment or payroll tax (whether they pay it all themselves as self-employment tax, or pay 7.65% while the employer pays another 7.65%, makes no difference in the long run, as the employer's 7.65% is ultimately born by employees in the form of lower wages than they would have been able to negotiate in the absence of the payroll tax).
So what the GOP thinks is just and good for our society is to create a class of people in the top 0.2% of the population, who, despite never earning a dime on their own merit, inherit billions tax free, then live on annual income of millions, and pay a total federal tax rate (15%) of less than the lowest paid worker (who pays at least 15.3% in SE/payroll even if at a zero % income tax rate), and less than 1/3 of the total federal tax rate of Americans who work for high income and pay up to 54.9% on their earned income (39.6% + 15.3%).
(That is to say, that every single trust fund billionaire, who structures their finances so that income consists of capital gains, pays a lower total federal tax rate than the rate paid by every single working member of the 47% Romney falsely maligned as "paying no taxes")
And now the GOP wants to change the playing field so as to massively increase wealth polarization with each generation.
The Republican prescription is a prescription for the destruction of opportunity, the destruction of hope, & the social disintegration of America.
The GOP prescription fits the economic culture of czarist Russia, and the gangster/oligarch capitalism of present day Russia, but it is antithetical to a free society.
