Political cartoonist and essayist Ted Rall wonders why, in the face of ever-increasing anger about the growing inequality in the US and other developed countries, the ruling class does [Read more…]

The one-percenters and their lackeys often indignantly make the claim that since they are the ones who pay most of the taxes, they should be praised rather than vilified, since it is largely their tax dollars that enable the state to function. They point to the roughly 47% of the population who do not pay any federal income taxes as being essentially moochers, as if being so poor that you do not even qualify to pay income tax is somehow an ingenious dodge to live off the wealthy.

But this situation arises not because the current tax rates are [Read more…]

It is no secret that it is an article of faith in the Republican party that tax cuts are always good and almost all their candidates had tax proposals to do so. Via Kevin Drum, I came across a handy chart created by the Tax Policy Center that showed the effect of these cuts and what is clear is that most of the benefits go to the very wealthy. Herman Cain’s plan even raised taxes on lower incomes while cutting those of the wealthy.

These people could not be more transparent about their devotion to serving the interests of the rich.

Most of us think that people who have made a ton of money by various means then simply invest it and live off the resulting income. But what form does this investment income take? If you are an average person, you tend to think of investment income as the interest on certificates of deposit or savings and money market accounts, which are taxed at the same rate as ordinary income. More sophisticated investors get their investment income in the form of [Read more…]

One of the reasons why Mitt Romney has always been the favorite to win the Republican nomination is because he is the oligarchy’s choice, with close ties to all the major banks. He has obtained [Read more…]

A quite extraordinary thing has happened in American, and even world, politics. It used to be the case that great wealth and income inequality were topics that were not mentioned in mainstream discourse and to suggest that this was not healthy for a democracy was to be accused of being envious or creating class warfare or attacking capitalism itself.

But how things have changed. Now the vast disparity in income and wealth between the top 1% and the remaining 99% is front and center. The gulf between the former and the latter is a major topic of discussion in [Read more…]

The candidate for US Senate from Massachusetts seems to have passion and a willingness to take on the big financial interests that are working against the poor and the middle class. While the US Senate has become a largely ineffective body, she may still be able to use it as a platform to articulate a point of view that is currently with little voice in Congress.

Of course, I have been disillusioned before by many candidates who [Read more…]

Large gifts given to others are taxable. There are some loopholes. For example, a parent can give up to $10,000 per year to a child without incurring gift taxes. But if you have income that can be classified as ‘carried interest’, then you can give huge gifts to your children without incurring any tax whatsoever.

Romney’s tax returns reveal that he gave $100 million to his children using this loophole, that is available only to the wealthy whose income is from investments.