Joe Thinks Lorenzo Ain’t Taxed Enough?

USA may bilk the rich people as WSJ’s argues in “How America Soaks the Affluent.” Yet 15th Century’s Lorenzo di Medici passed a law for him & other Florentine got rocks to pay 2/3 of their income to republic’s tax man.

So blame our progressive interest rates on copycatting of The Magnificent One? There’s no doubt about it, says the editors, that is, that the US “income tax code is steeply progressive. And, don’t believe the newspaper but the 2020 IRS data it cites and which show “the top 1% of earners paid 42.3% of the country’s income taxes.” That represents, it says, a ”two-decade high in the share of taxes the 1% pay.” [Moreover], the op ed adds, “that same 1% reported earnings of 22.2% of adjusted gross income on their tax returns, which means the share of taxes paid by the top 1% as a group is roughly double their share of income.”

As the editors note, “Mr. Biden likes to cherry pick the example of the odd billionaire [no, not Nancy Pelosi] who might pay a small amount of tax in a given year … This shouldn’t be news to anyone paying attention, but it’s worth noting the enormous gap between reality, as reflected in the data, and the posturing in Washington about the rich escaping taxation. Despite the President’s demagoguery, millionaires & billionaires don’t pay less than their secretaries.”

Davd Soul