Seattle Times Reporter Jon Talton's Take On The Tax OverHaul

Giving credit where credit is due - some snippets from the article published today where Jon's pen warms up a bit calling the tax overhaul "a dog's breakfast of hidden mischief" What’s wrong with the GOP tax plan, from 30,000 feet . . . you'll just have to read more to find out where he's going with this - and see where he ends up. How good will it get is yours to find out

If the tax overhaul passes, expect America to fall further behind Special to The Seattle Times 

By Jon Talton

Originally published November 27, 2017 at 10:11 am 

Updated November 27, 2017 at 4:42 pm
(Blogger Note: Images here are not part of original article)

"The Republican tax cut moving through Congress has many individual ills... It’s a dog’s breakfast of hidden mischief,. It's based on myths and falsehoods...

America is not, contrary to President Trump’s assertion, the most highly taxed country in the world. Taxes as a percentage of GDP are well below the average of OECD industrialized nations. The U.S. has the fourth-highest statutory corporate tax rate in the world, but that doesn’t mean companies actually pay it; many pay none at all.

But beyond all this and more that’s wrong with the proposed GOP overhaul, we must contend with the consequences from the big picture, from 30,000 feet... the enormous rise in inequality witnessed in recent decades can be traced heavily to tax cuts. Why?

They mostly benefit the rich and the class that makes its money from investing rather than drawing wages...But it’s not even your tax cuts for the most part, dear reader. Most benefits have gone to the elite in our new Gilded Age. Perhaps the worst casualty of 37 years of Republican tax voodoo is the destruction of the commons, the public interest, the idea that as Americans we’re all in this together. And unless the current tax bill implodes, things are about to get worse

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Related Content:

World's witnessing a new Gilded Age as billionaires’ wealth swells to $6tn

Not since the time of the Carnegies, Rockefellers and Vanderbilts at the turn of the 20th century was so much owned by so few

Rupert Neate Wealth correspondent

Thursday 26 October 2017 11.48 EDT 

Last modified on Monday 27 November 2017 09.49 EST

 

The world’s super-rich hold the greatest concentration of wealth since the US Gilded Age at the turn of the 20th century, when families like the Carnegies, Rockefellers and Vanderbilts controlled vast fortunes.
Billionaires increased their combined global wealth by almost a fifth last year to a record $6tn (£4.5tn) – more than twice the GDP of the UK. There are now 1,542 dollar billionaires across the world, after 145 multi-millionaires saw their wealth tick over into nine-zero fortunes last year, according to the UBS / PwC Billionaires report.

Josef Stadler, the lead author of the report and UBS’s head of global ultra high net worth, said his billionaire clients were concerned that growing inequality between rich and poor could lead to a “strike back”.
“We’re at an inflection point,” Stadler said. “Wealth concentration is as high as in 1905, this is something billionaires are concerned about. The problem is the power of interest on interest – that makes big money bigger and, the question is to what extent is that sustainable and at what point will society intervene and strike back?”
Stadler added: “We are now two years into the peak of the second Gilded Age.”
READ MORE > https://www.theguardian.com