FULL COURT PRESS

From Think Progress courtesy of their facebook page:

Tax Dodging By Corporations And The Wealthy Cost Each Taxpayer $1,026 In 2012

America’s largest corporations have stashed nearly $1.5 trillion in offshore tax havens like Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and Ireland — countries where they do little business but claim massive profits due to low tax rates. As a result, corporate tax rates fell to a 40-year low in 2011 even as profits rose to a 60-year high.

Tax avoidance from corporations and wealthy individuals has a cost for individual taxpayers and small businesses, according to a new report from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. According to U.S. PIRG, tax dodging cost individual taxpayers $1,026 and each small business $3,067 in 2012.

Those costs don’t necessarily come from higher taxes; instead, they often come in the form of higher budget deficits or, as they are now, from substantial cuts to public programs and services that benefit middle- and low-income families.

More here.

They've used their power to manipulate Congress so as to remove or render irrelevant existing laws that help labor unions collectively bargain with companies for fair wages and benefits.  They've used the same tactic to weaken regulations, you know, the kind of stuff that keeps them from poisoning the environment, and from ripping off, hurting, and killing consumers, so they can make more money while the tax payers pick up the tab for their "externalities."  They've used their power to get their people into regulatory agencies so as to avoid enforcement of regulations that they couldn't weaken in Congress.  They've also used their power to get their taxes reduced year after year.  And on and on and on.  The tax avoidance scams mentioned in the excerpt above are yet another way that corporations and the very wealthy take money out of our pockets.

It's a full court press.  The rich are stealing from us in as many ways as they can imagine.  And they're getting away with it scot free.  Just another reminder that we've been losing the class war for a very long time.

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