Tax fairness is key to the economic narrative in 2024. đ
This Tax Day, working people across America will pay their fair share in taxes. So why can't the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share, too?
In 2024, billionaires and corporations are raking in record wealth and profits while paying record low tax rates. Meanwhile, working families across all races and backgrounds are still recovering from the pandemic and inflation. The Republican Party, from its top leaders on down, is pushing for tax cuts skewed to the wealthy and corporations, and plan to pay for them by cutting essential services like Social Security, Medicare, healthcare, education, housing, nutrition assistance, and more.
However, polls show that a majority of voters across party lines support President Biden and Democrats' stance on making the rich pay their fair share in taxes. And when we make the wealthy and corporations pay their fair share, we can do big things for working families!
Join us this Tax Day to highlight this economic narrativeânot only is tax fairness a winning issue, it's a perfect contrast of the competing visions for our economy.
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đď¸ Tax Day
Working people are paying their fair share in taxes todayâbillionaires and corporations aren't.
This Tax Day, millions of working families are paying their fair share in taxes. But billionaires and giant corporations will get away with paying little or nothing.
It's time for our tax code to reward work, not just wealth.You probably paid a higher tax rate this Tax Day than the wealthiest billionaires and the most profitable corporations.
That's not right. It's time the wealthy and corporations paid their fair share in taxes.If you paid a penny in federal income taxes this year, you paid more taxes than:
Elon Musk in 2018Â
Jeff Bezos in 2007 and 2011
Amazon in 2018
Nike in 2020
Boeing from 2018-2022
Eli Lilly in 2018
Starbucks in 2018
Tesla from 2018-2022
FedEx in 2020
T-Mobile from 2018-2022
đ The 2025 Fight
Big parts of the 2017 Trump-GOP tax cuts skewed to the wealthy and corporations are set to expire in 2025. Republicans are committed to renewing the tax scam at a cost of as much as $4 trillion. Tax fairness advocates are fighting to let the tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations expire, while not raising taxes on working families.
The Republican plan to extend the Trump tax scam is projected to cost nearly $4 TRILLION. How do you think they plan to pay for it? The same way they always doâby demanding enormous cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, housing, veterans' benefits, and more.
Just in case you were wondering how the Trump-GOP tax cuts will be distributed in 2025: Households in the top 1% will get a $60,000 average tax cut. The bottom 60% will get less than $1 a day. This is why we call it a tax scam.
The Trump-GOP tax scam enacted a $2 trillion tax cut that overwhelmingly benefitted the very wealthy and the biggest corporations and exploded the federal deficit. Trump's tax cuts were just another trickle-down tax scam.
Don't let any Republicans get away with crying about the debt. Their tax cuts skewed to the wealthy and corporations under Bush and Trump have added $10 trillion to national debt. And they want to add another $4 trillion by extending the Trump tax scam.
America's billionaires are now worth a record $5.8 TRILLION. That's a 99% increase in wealth since Trump and Republicans slashed taxes for the rich in 2017. Much of those wealth gains will never be taxed. We don't need another Trump tax scamâwe need to tax the rich.
đ¤ The Billionaires
President Biden is calling on Congress to pass a Billionaire Minimum Income Tax to end the scandal of billionaires and other super-wealthy individuals paying a lower tax rate than teachers, nurses and firefightersâand sometimes paying nothing at all.
The top 1% now account for 30% of the nationâs wealth. The top 10% account for 67%. It's been forty years since "trickle-down economics" began. It's not trickling down, it's trickling up. Tax the rich.
The richest 1% in America just hit a record $44.6 trillion in collective wealth. You'd need to have $11 million in wealth to be in the richest 1%. When we say tax the rich, this is who we're talking about. They can afford to pay their fair share.
America's billionaires are now worth a record $5.8 trillion. That's up 88% since the pandemic hit. And while working families are recovering from the pandemic, billionaires are paying lower tax rates than many of us. This is what we mean when we say our tax code is rigged.
Billionaires have gotten $2.9 TRILLION richer since the Trump tax giveaway to the wealthy and corporations. They're paying lower tax rates than nurses and teachers. And guess what? It's not trickling down. President Biden is rightâwe need a Billionaire Minimum Income Tax.
The top 400 billionaires pay an average federal income tax rate of just 8% when the growth in the value of their stock holdings is included in their income. Thatâs little more than half the 14.9% average income tax rate that all taxpayers pay. Tax billionaires.
đ˘ The Corporations
The same corporations busting unions, price-gouging consumers, and engaging in shrinkflation are paying record low tax rates and using their tax savings to enrich their wealthy CEOs and shareholders.
If you paid a single penny in federal income taxes over the period of 2018-2022, you paid more in taxes than:
T-Mobile
Duke Energy
Ball
Office Depot
Kinder Morgan
DTE Energy
In the first five years of Trump's massive tax giveaway to the wealthy, 23 huge profitable corporations paid ZERO federal income taxes. 55 corporations paid less than 5%. Say it with me: The Trump tax cuts were nothing more than a trickle-down scam.
Corporate profit margins are at their highest since the 1950s. According to @Groundwork, corporate profits drove 53% of inflation in the second and third quarters of 2023.
Corporate profits reached a record $2.8 TRILLION at the end of 2023. Corporations can afford to pay their fair share in taxes.
From 2018-2022, the biggest corporations in America saw their profits skyrocket by 63%âto a staggering $1.25 trillion. 90% of that profitâ$1.1 trillionâwent straight to wealthy shareholders through stock buybacks and dividends. No, corporate tax cuts don't "trickle down."
Between 2018 and 2022, 35 major U.S. corporationsâlike Ford, Netflix and Teslaâpaid their executives MORE than they paid in federal income taxes. Many even had a negative tax rateâmeaning we gave THEM a refund. It's time we made greedy corporations pay their fair share in taxes.
đ¨ The IRS
Thanks to President Biden and Democrats' new funding for the IRS, the agency is cracking down on wealthy tax cheats and providing better services for working taxpayers.
Thanks to the Democratsâ restored funding, the IRS has:
âRecovered $500 MILLION from wealthy tax cheats
âAnswered 2 MILLION more taxpayer calls than previous years
âNotified Microsoft it that it owes $29 BILLION
âLaunched a free, online tax filing program
Thanks to Republican budget cuts, millionaire audits dropped 92% between 2010-2020. With restored funding, the IRS has already collected over half a billion dollars from rich tax cheats. Just in case you wondered why Republicans are fighting so hard to strip funding from the IRS.
EVERY YEAR millionaires and billionaires evade $150 billion in taxes. Ten years of free community college costs only $80 billion. Ten years of canceled medical debt costs $88 billion. When we make the ultra-rich pay what they owe, we can invest in ALL of us.
For every $1 spent on IRS funding, we can get $7-$12 back. Republican attempts to cut IRS funding arenât about fiscal responsibility, theyâre about protecting rich tax cheats.
Resources
Great pieces, data, and other resources from the ATF coalition and beyond
"As Tax Day Approaches, New Study Finds U.S. Billionaires Now Worth A Record $5.8 Trillion," ATF
"For Tax Day, 7 Charts on the 2017 Trump Tax Law and Why Congress Should Set a New Course," CBPP
"More for Them, Less for US: Corporations That Pay Their Executives More Than Uncle Sam," ATF + IPS
"Corporate Tax Avoidance in the First Five Years of the Trump Tax Law," ITEP