You Don't Have To Pay Taxes!* (Script & Sources)
Added 2021-04-17 00:56:10 +0000 UTCDid you know that if you’re rich, you don’t need to pay your taxes? And I’m not talking about tax loopholes, or write-offs, or deductions, or offshore accounts, that’s a different thing. What I’m telling you is that if you legally owe taxes, but you’re rich, you don’t have to pay them.
In 2017, Americans owed $131 billion dollars in unpaid taxes, and most of that was owed by the ultra-wealthy. So, why doesn’t the IRS just do its job and collect that money?
Well, they can’t anymore. Over the past decade, Congress has systematically, and deliberately removed the IRS’s ability to audit the wealthy. The IRS budget has been cut every single year since 2010, and their staff has been reduced to just 9,510 auditors, the same number that they had in the 1950s. In 2019, the IRS Commissioner wrote a letter to Congress saying that they simply don’t have the resources anymore to audit high-income taxpayers, and that to make up the difference, they would have to increase audits on low-income taxpayers unless their budget was increased. In response to the letter, the Trump administration cut their budget by another 300 million dollars. Seriously.
As of today, millionaires and billionaires are 80% less likely to be audited than they were in 2011. Oh, and don’t forget that because of the 2017 tax cuts, the top 1% now has a lower overall tax rate than the middle class, which they’re not paying anyway.
