Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
“Trump frequently made tens of millions of dollars annually during that period. But he was able to whittle away his tax bill by claiming steep business losses that offset that income.
In 2016, he paid $750. The following year he again paid just $750. In 2020, he paid nothing.”
…
“In other years, Trump paid more. In 2018, he had far fewer losses to report and ended up paying $999,466.”
“The House GOP’s first bill out of the gate doesn’t address inflation or gas prices or immigration, but instead zeroes in on the Internal Revenue Service.
The bill set to be voted on Monday evening — barring a stalemate over approving the rules for the 118th Congress — would reverse much of the $80 billion in extra funding set aside for the agency by 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act.
While it has little chance of being enacted with Democrats in control of the Senate, the prominence of the issue shows just how much the IRS has become a target of Republicans even though experts say the funds in question would go toward more prosaic concerns like helping the agency chase down tax cheats and refresh its shockingly outdated technology.”
…
“The claim from McCarthy, which has been echoed by many Republicans, is that the influx of money will lead to a flood of 87,000 new IRS agents who will then harass everyday Americans. Some critics of the agency go even further and claim these new agents will be armed.
But fact-checkers have repeatedly debunked the claims, and the agency itself pushed back in a Yahoo Finance op-ed from then-IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig in August.
The viral claims are “absolutely false,” Rettig wrote at the time, adding his agency “is often perceived as an easy target for mischaracterizations,” but he promised the new money will not lead to increased audit scrutiny on households making under $400,000.
The plan is instead for much of the money to go toward wealthy tax cheats. IRS estimates of the so-called “tax gap” — the difference between what taxes are owed to the government and what is actually paid — is hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
Much of the $80 billion will be focused on taking a bite out of the gap, focusing on wealthy tax payers. The investment is projected to pay for itself and then bring in over $100 billion in increased tax revenue over the coming decade.
In addition, a May 2021 report by the Department of Treasury estimated that more IRS funding could lead to 86,852 new employees, but many of those new employees would not be agents. Many would work in other areas like information technology.
And nearly all new agents would be unarmed.”
How could changing capital gains taxes more revenue? Grace Enda and William G. Gale. 2020 1 14. Brookings. The rich benefit as Democrats retreat from tax on unrealized capital gains Greg Iacurci. CNBC. 2021 12 29. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/29/the-rich-benefit-as-democrats-forgo-tax-on-unrealized-capital-gains.html The Many Problems With Taxing
“So, what did corporations spend their large tax cut on, if not wages or investment? Analysts at the International Monetary Fund find that 80 percent of the corporate tax cuts were repurposed into stock buybacks and dividends, which overwhelmingly benefited wealthy shareholders.16 And Lenore Palladino of the University of Massachusetts Amherst documents that these corporate buybacks and dividends also widened the racial wealth divide, finding that White stock-owners hold $27 for every $1 in corporate equity and mutual fund value held by a Black or Hispanic stock-owner.17
The main effects of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act were less government revenue and regressive tax cuts for corporations, wealthy shareholders, and executives who bear nearly all the burden of corporate taxes even as the rate changes had little effect on business investment or workers.””