These "normal workers" pay a lot of that 40% of the tax bill.
There aren't that many CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and board members, A+ list celebrities, and aristocrats. You're getting into the .01% - that's still 32,000 people!
Chicago Booth put together an article with graphs to really show how much the top 0.01% has diverged [1].
The top 0.01% still pays A LOT of the income taxes - about 5% - but that means, mostly hardworking normal people in the top 1% are paying the other 35% of that 40% share of the tax bill.
It's not like Bill & Melinda Gates are paying 40% of the tax bill by themselves...
[1] https://review.chicagobooth.edu/economics/2017/article/never...
The top 1% in the US is ~400K USD.
Real question for OP (and others): What do you think is a reasonable effective income tax rate? (Please do not confuse effective and nominal tax rates!) In my view: "All in" should be about 50-55%. When I say "all in" I mean absolutely everything -- federal, state, local, national pension, national health (if applicable), yada yada yada. That would mean top 1% still have net income (after taxes) of more than 200K USD.
If you look at highly developed economies, it seems hard to provide a healthy social safety net without 50% effective income tax rate on top 1%.
In Hongkong, the top effective tax rate is about 15%. The social safety net is appalling. The number of poor, working, elderly people (collecting cardboard in the street to sell by the kilo to recyclers) is heartbreaking. You would not use the public health system, nor the public school system; nor depend upon the national pension, nor unemployment benefits. One bright spot: The public housing system has served well the working class and below. (I joke that 15% only gets you a good metro system and airport.) Hongkong feels like a semi-feudalistic society.
In my view one of the big problems is that capital gains are taxed less than income from working and they are a proportional tax. The result of that is that once you get to the 0.1 % taxation becomes regressive because a bigger chunk of your income comes from capital gains.
Might be more sensible to give smallish tax breaks for CGT to ordinary workers and reform the taxation of worker share options no more crippling tax bills for worthless options.
Id also encourage listed companies to offer UK style share saves to all workers to allow those lower down the food chain to actually get some equity.
Good question. For the United States, I reference: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/10151...
If you hold one year or more:
Filing Status: Single
0% rate: Up to $40,000
15% rate: $40,000 to to $441,450
20% rate: Over $441,450
In the above, personally, I would like to remove the brackets for 15% and 20%. My point: For anyone beyond middle class, tax capital gains as regular income.
Taxing cgt as income has some negative aspects.
And almost 1/2 mill a year income is not what id call "middle class"
I live in Uruguay, South America - my taxes include healthcare and retirement.
It's definitely not ideal and it's crippling my chance of ever owning a home, but it does pay for a lot of social services way beyond what the U.S. provides - key differences being state provided healthcare and education up to and including the university level.
In the US - your effective income tax rate could be as low as ~24% on $60k. There is nowhere it would be higher than ~33%.
So your tax rate is AT LEAST 22% higher - and all you're getting is "free" education and healthcare.
=FV(0.075, 40, -13200, 0).
That's $3M by the time you would retire if you invested the difference in taxes in a total market index fund and got average returns. Adjusted for inflation - that's $822k. You could reliably drawdown the equivalent of ~$3.5k per month forever. That's 50% more than you make after taxes now...
And in the US - you would already be getting $3k+ from social security... Plus you'd have free healthcare via Medicare...
Individually, you are unquestionably better off with the lower tax rate in the US. Unless you went to Princeton to study underwater basketweaving without a scholarship. Even if you had ridiculously expensive chronic conditions - there's plans you can get cheaper than $13k per year.
And as a whole you are also worse off.
The cost of "free" education is estimated at $47Bn in the US. That would increase taxes by about 1.1%.
The cost of "free" healthcare is estimated at an additional $1.6Tn. If evenly distributed - that would increase everyone's taxes by about 43%.
That means your tax rate would be as low as ~31% or as high as ~41% -- depending on which state you lived in.
Do you feel the healthcare and national pension are high quality ("good value")?
Who is this for? The “rich” or for everyone else?
An effective rate of 50-55% is obscene. I would relocate for anything approaching 40%.
In California - if you don't have a ton of mortgage interest deductions and you count state income tax - you're above 39.5% on $400k. If you count both sides of payroll tax, you're in the mid 40s. And even if you own a home, if you count property tax, you could be close to or above 50%.
The median state income tax is about half of California's at $400k - and property taxes here are somewhat low. Most places - you're gonna be above 40%.
1) Where do you live?
2) Are you in the top 1%?
3) In your location, what is the effective income tax rate for top 1%?
That would depend on how you classify 1%.
The effective tax rate for an individual earning $400k would be around 31%.
Like I said, even approaching 40% is obscene. 50-55% is absolute thievery. I would relocate from Texas if my effective tax was even close to 40%.
I mean, you’re pointing your finger at the <1% above you, claiming you’re just “an normal worker” who is shouldered with the burden of paying taxes, yet you’re ignoring the fact you make more money than 99% of people. 99%!
And I love the call out about your everyday working schmuck cousin, you know, the radiologist, who is in one of the highest paid professions and if he’s in the US is likely making close to $500,000 per year. Almost 10x the median US salary.
https://www.salary.com/research/salary/alternate/radiologist...
I mean, what do you really want? Everyone works according to abilities and everyone is provided for according to their needs?
Basically when the OP says “the rich should pay more” I’m saying “ok, but that includes you”
Even if one makes say 1000000 in income, no equities, and takes the standard deduction, they are not the Rich being lamented here. They would not be doing end runs around tax obligations.
Yes, you blow the minimum wage folks out of the water salary-wise, but it doesn't mean they are in any different a boat than any other tax payer trying to do it right.
Which can actually be surprisingly difficult if you do anything other than basically "money comes in, money goes out". I'm actually somewhat afraid of doing any of the more advanced reading in the tax code, because it'll probably end up with me makimg a few appointments with the IRS to get someone to explain things to me. Their writing style is terrible, and I tend to lose track in the forests of ambiguous antecedents.
I say this as someone who isn't a stranger to reading legal docs or standards for fun.
That is still quite disproportionately more.
I pay a big chunk of my income in taxes too. Everyone needs to contribute. There's not enough money otherwise, and demanding that Bill Gates pay more, as much as I dislike him, isn't going to do it (and doesn't seem fair as he's already paying his fair share).
If someone is going to be supporting society, they are the people with the means.
What's your definition of a normal worker? Lawyers, doctors, dentists, pilots, architects and programmers sound like normal workers to me.
This is still millions of people, and I imagine they would think they're normal workers, too. But Fortune 500 CEOs? Well, there's only... 500. Even the combined payroll of the MLB, NBA, NHL, NFL, and MLS is less than 10,000 professional athletes where median pay is $860k, $1.15M, and $8.3M for the NFL, MLB, and NBA respectively.
Average Income of those normal workers [2]:
* Lawyer: $148,910
* Dentists (across all specialities): $186,300
* Physicians (across all specialties): $218,850
* Architects: $89,470
* Software engineers (across all specialties): $109,950
* All computer and math specialties: $96,770
* Pilots (All specialties): $163,480 [3]
So these “Normal people” are not even apart of the discussion stop making it seem like all these professions seem like they are in the top 1%. It’s paint a really false picture that skews the conversation at large.
1. https://www.epi.org/blog/top-1-0-of-earners-see-wages-up-157...
2. https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm#23-0000
3. I think that number might miss out on all the burn out low level contract airline pilots that make peanuts.
We're not. Lawyer income is not on a normal distribution.
People making >400k a year are owners/partners in a successful firm. Most of these people work hard, yes, but they make their big dollars off leverage; the amount of margin they can accrue from billing out the work of lower ranked lawyers on files they've brought in. Some don't even do legal work. It's very tough to lump these guys in with 'normal workers'.
For the people doing low-cost-jurisdiction bulk lawyer work, they make closer to 25-35$/hr as contractors. Which is almost an order of magnitude less. These are normal workers.
All the people you're listing aren't necessarily normal workers - observe that some of them are part of the much-vaunted 1%.
I don't really understand the mindset that people are grumpy about the 1% and then interpret that as "oh really they're on the side of the 1% they mean the 0.1%". If anything, it might be the other way around and they mean the 10%.
The argument is there need to be more transfer payments. A mindset that CEOs need to pay but not fabulously wealthy doctors/dentists/programmers is a mystery to me. What even is the argument?
These are people who either need to work for 2 years (pre-tax) to live comfortably for a decade or they're squandering their earnings. They are outrageously wealthy.
This is because some of them launched themselves into a high-earning job and others were born into significant generational wealth. Most people who are born into serious wealth aren't going to stay long (if ever at all) in a sub-100K salary grind regardless of talent and skills.
Incidentally, I happen to know that a good number of the people that get busted for insider trading are highly compensated finance folks that make ~400K. They see their peers with dynastic wealth and the accompanying toys, get envious, and try taking "short cuts".
Average Income of those normal workers [2]:
* Lawyer: $148,910
* Dentists (across all specialities): $186,300
* Physicians (across all specialties): $218,850
* Architects: $89,470
* Software engineers (across all specialties): $109,950
* All computer and math specialties: $96,770
* Pilots (All specialties): $163,480 [3]
So these “Normal people” are not even apart of the discussion stop making it seem like all these professions seem like they are in the top 1%. It’s paint a really false picture that skews the conversation at large.
1. https://www.epi.org/blog/top-1-0-of-earners-see-wages-up-157...
2. https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm#23-0000
3. I think that number might miss out on all the burn out low level contract airline pilots that make peanuts.
The cutoff for the 1% for households is around $550k. For individuals it's around $400k.
The median salary for radiologists is $422k [2].
The median salary for a Google Sr Engineer is >$350k [3] (not including Google stock appreciation - which pushes this well into the $500k range).
[1] https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income...
[2] https://www.salary.com/research/salary/alternate/radiologist...
[3] https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software-Engi...
1) Engineers at Google earning 400K+ USD per year are receiving a large chunk in stock grants. I guess 1/3 to 1/2. (And the last 10 years have been very, very good for equity prices in tech majors.) I assume those receive capital gains tax treatment when sold. If held for at least one year, you receive generous tax savings. Is that fair?
2) Radiologist is probably paid 100% cash or part in deferred (cash) comp. I doubt their receive equity in their public/listed hospital group. Dear Reader Doctors: Please correct me if I am wrong! Also: Are you aware of incomes for highly-skilled specialists in other high-developed countries with good national healthcare systems? I guess about 50% less. Look at Germany, Netherlands, France, Japan, etc. The US is a global outlier on healthcare costs and incomes.
3) Investment banker is a loose term, because you can be a very senior quant on Wall Street can earn 500K USD. Or you can be a M&A i-banker or trader or portfolio manager and easily earn more than 500K USD in good years, but a good chunk will be equity. I guess 1/4 to 1/3. If you make crazy money (millions), surely 50% equity. That said, equity in an investment bank isn't a very good investment. Look at the last ten years compared to big tech. Big tech is killing ibanks on equity returns. Still... that equity grant will get beneficial tax treatment. In this narrow scenario, what benefit does this serve for the wider economy? I see little.
4) Lawyers: Probably paid all cash, possibly deferred comp (cash). Most white shoe law firms that can pay 400K+ USD are not public/listed, so equity isn't the same, even if there is /some/ measure of profit-sharing. Please correct me if I am wrong about public/listed law firms. Just before I hit reply, I thought of another type of special case: corporate counsel. If you work an in-house counsel in New York City, you can easily make 400K+ USD as a senior lawyer. And your company probably pays you some equity. (We can all this i-bank/legal hybrid job.)
5) Small business owners: These are essentially small-time executives who can structure all kinds of non-income payments to themselves and reduce their tax burden. Important: I would also separate intellectual property-heavy businesses (high-value services) vs traditional mom-n-pop shops, like chain of gift shops or pizza restaurants. The return-on-equity is hugely different. That said, in most developed economies, small-to-medium enterprises generate the lion's share of new jobs. (Huzzah to that.) Still, the same tax benefits the owner can structure for themselves will not also be arranged for the "normal workers". Again: Is this fair?
That means - if I was granted $75k worth of Google stock to be paid this year - but it has quadrupled in value... Upon vesting - I'll receive $300k worth of Google stock this year...
I pay "earned" income tax on all $300k of that - meaning, after taxes, I get about ~$185k of that.
If I should hold that for a year - and it goes up 20% in value - I would pay capital gains tax on that 20% / ~$37k just like anyone else who bought and held Google stock for a year.
Meaning - your second option isn't really an option.
Your company withholds some shares when they vest (usually less than you actually pay in taxes). Then, regardless of whether you sell or hold - at the end of the year - the IRS comes after the rest of the "earned income" taxes you owe.
IFF you do hold the shares - for say another 2 years - you pay only capital gains on your stock appreciation for those 2 years (if there is any). You already paid "earned income" tax on the shares the year you received them from your company.
Classifying the 1%'s wealth by talking about their income as if its 100% of their wealth might be a bit misleading.
Does wealth matter when you're talking about taxes? I was under the impression "1%" was in reference to share of adjusted gross income, not total wealth.
Germany blocking regulation of car emissions and it's control/manipulation of the Euro to ensure its advantage, France's support to state industries and use of its intelligence services to gain competitive business contracts, the US subsidising research through military investment, Delaware Corps, Swiss banks being Swiss banks, Scandinavian companies using bribes, various favoured semi-state companies in Eastern Europe with suspiciously tight political connections, Israel using state resources and insider access for trusted businesses, Korean State lead industry, Chinas intellectual property theft, Italy and Greece's lack of tax collection, Dutch taxes, Malta's money laundering, the UK using Trusts, the Island of Man and BVI to allow companies manipulate tax but keeping it at an arm's length, UKs revolving door between intelligence/gov/banking, the UK letting dodgy money wash through London.
Ireland is one of the worse on the corporate tax but in many ways we are just a rocky previously poor outcrop that has found a way to be competitive openly. Many others do unfair things in more hidden ways and everything needs to be on the table.
Also "others are not playing well either" is not a convincing argument. Ireland is on par with Cayman islands and similar tax havens on a whole another level - unlike any of the countries that you're pointing at.
There is absolutely no doubt that the policy of encouraging foreign-direct-investment has transformed Ireland into a modern and wealthy nation. The question is whether we sold our souls to the devil to achieve that. My personal take is no, but I respect the opposing opinion.
The issue today is indeed CoL, but that is a function of the government's failure to build. We were poor before the celtic tiger, we got addicted to property, the financial crisis hit us incredibly hard, and we are not building housing nearly quick enough today, especially with the (welcome!) influx of continental europeans to Ireland as multilingual workers servicing the european market for these US companies. There's a fresh batch of emigration happening now for this very reason.
I grant the first one, but how exactly does Germany control/manipulate the Euro?
When the Euro started the German economy was in a terrible stagnation.
The Euro needed to be higher for countries like Ireland that economically were doing very well at the time. By keeping it low to make German exports more competitive it meant countries like Ireland overheated, instead of having a natural breaking mechanism though higher interest rates. Irish interest rates were way too low at the time. (Of course that doesn't remove our responsibility for not taking the loans or for regulating things better)
Tons of money in Germany that was making little return then flooded into countries running hot. When this stupid money should have been written off as bad loans the Germans strong armed Ireland and elsewhere to pay it all back in full. Many of these debts should have been properly haircut.
It's the same thing with the Euro post 2008. Germany's tight control of its policy means it gets the strongest say on what actions the ECB takes and generally how the wider EU approaches finances etc.
Don't know about Ireland, but saw a TV highlight about 2yrs ago, that analysed benefits for the country and found there hardly aren't any. For regular citizens and the economy in general, at least. That a lot of the revenues flow to those upholding this lax tax system, while the huge money streams flow through NL to end up in even more lax tax havens.
I could be completely wrong, I’m not a tax lawyer
For a "fair" scheme they would tax on their share of revenue.
Irish GDP is about 2.5% of EU GDP. 20% of 2.5% is 0.5%
So with the current scheme they make double.
And yes, that calculation is wrong in many ways. On the one side the current GDP is increased due to the tax business (they are 1% of population) on the other hand there are still many company's not doing the Irish game. And yes, I ignored the Dutch for this calculation ...
Two: the US is actively working on what it is calling a global minimum corporate tax
Three: anonymous shell companies were made illegal in the US in January
It seems your comment is rather uninformed. There is of course much to do but it is hard to look at what is happening and come to the conclusion that it is all nothing
https://www.irs.gov/privacy-disclosure/the-truth-about-frivo...
It is such a weak argument that now I'm wondering if that site is as sloppy in their research on the other interesting articles I found there, like the ones about how there were more white slaves than black slaves in the US, or how the Rothschilds control the US, or chemtrails are real and drenching the population with mercury (to accomplish one or more of: make it hard to prove that mercury in vaccines is a source of harm, to reduce the population, or centralize power with the UN), or a bunch of stuff on the Pope, the Freemasons, and the Illuminati that was sufficiently incoherent that I couldn't quite tell what they were claiming.
Are you sure that the site is not meant as on over the top satire of conspiracy theories?
The 16th Amendment was passed in response to SCOTUS's ruling in Pollock. Pollock held that a tax on income derived from property (i.e., rental income) was effectively a property tax, and therefore a direct tax, requiring apportionment to the states. This is why the 16th Amendment says "power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived" (emphasis added). There was prior precedent that income taxes per se were constitutional (Springer v US, per Wikipedia). Furthermore, Pollock's reasoning itself is pretty close to bunk--I wouldn't expect SCOTUS to uphold it even without the 16th Amendment.
Oh god, rereading the article, it gets worse:
> Can a law declared unconstitutional in 1895 be constitutional in 1913 and beyond?
Yes, if there is a change in the constitution explicitly done so as to render it constitutional. But it's also not like SCOTUS itself hasn't changed its mind on what's constitutional and unconstitutional in the past (see Commerce Clause jurisprudence for an example of where unconstitutional interpretations have become constitutional).
The term "shell companies" seems to imply something nefarious, and that may very well be the case, but in itself having 50 entities in The Netherlands is not really a sign of that.
It's also important to point out that they do not chose The Netherlands for low corporate tax rates, they are not the lowest in the EU by far, but because of "tax rulings". Those are agreements they can make with the tax authorities that ascertain them how much tax they will pay this year as long as revenue, costs, etc, stay within a certain bandwidth. In the US it can take over a year for them to get any certainty on what their tax bill would be for the previous year.
Your reasoning for why it's not going to happen is that something that shouldn't be happening, actually is?
When you have an agenda that wants to spend an additional $6tillion do you really care that much about tax revenues? (On top of the $5 trillion from the past year) At that point does it really matter how much you collect? You’ve clearly given up all semblance of trying to balance a budget.
At this point we’re pretty deep in the new-age progressive economic policy ideology, where taxes aren’t about building up gov coffers but rather taking money out of the economy, so does it really matter how the money is taken out? Why are you so concerned with taxing corporations when it’s much easier to tax people?
IIRC US corporate income tax rates are fairly high compared to the rest of the world (although maybe there's more deductions and other shenanigans)
It's also important to realize that a large portion (~10%) of individual income taxes are actually from pass-through business income.
Spending money on lobbyists is not corruption. Is the ACLU corrupting Congress through its lobbying?
Yes. Just because what something has as a goal may seem like a net positive doesn't mean the means it uses to get to that goal are.
The ACLU, like any lobbying, is using financial resources to influence democratic government policy disproportionately based on the financial resources it can acquire. The ACLU shouldn't need to exist but it's an interesting example to bring up.
Lobbying (part of the process of transferring wealth into power by influencing or creating policy that creates more or solidifies that wealth) shouldn't be permitted to exist. However in competitive environments, ultimately, ethics go out the window.
If you're constrained by ethics and your opponent isn't, you're working at a disadvantage in most environments. Rules have to exist to enforce those ethics in such environment and prevent such necessary compromises from being on the table. If we didn't have groups lobbying against individual rights and liberties we shouldn't need groups lobbying to protect individuals rights and liberty.
Both, IMHO, are signs of an unhealthy democracy. Let's eliminate lobbying.
That defeats the entire purpose of the current reprentative system if you have a mechanism to skew and pressure representation based on your financial resources as opposed to voters.
I already question the current representation system. It doesn't help when I know I can pump tens of millions or more into professional lobbyists to get unequal representation in government.
> 88% of the cost of the US Fed gov is paid for by taxes by workers (income taxes). Less than 12% comes from all corp/business taxes combined with capital gains (taxing the rich 1%). Business shifting tax burden to workers is a massive scale problem. $3.5 Trillion = US Tax Revenues (2019) and 88% came from workers.
This is meaningless. You need to look at something called "fiscal pressure". If you remove employees taxes and increase corporate taxes, what you'll probably get is lower salaries. {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_reven...}
tl;dr: Taxes are a political topic when they should be a scientific one.
US Federal Tax Revenues (2019): $3.5 Trillion
SOURCE: https://www.google.com/search?q=us+tax+revenues+2019&oq=us+t...
US Capital Gains (2018): $170 Billion (4.8%)
SOURCE: https://taxfoundation.org/federal-capital-gains-tax-collecti...
US Corporate Taxes: 3.9% of US Tax Revenues
https://taxfoundation.org/us-tax-revenue-2021/#:~:text=Corpo....
> US Capital Gains (2018)
Is that a typo or are you comparing revenues from two different years?
So, the top 1% of the top 1% of high-income earners, found a way for their income that would fall into the top tax bracket, to not be income. They turned it into capital gains or something else. To not do so would be crazy, so literally no one let a significant amount of their income fall into the top tax bracket, in the 1950s.
Or, better yet, proper sliding consumption taxes. If you want a yacht or private jet, pay 150% in taxes.
Norway already taxes luxury cars at over 100% of their value.
Or have your own personal shell corporation accumulate wealth and influence for you.
Adding that heavy of a tax will disincentivize some wealthy from buying the product, leading to slower, if any, feedback loop to give that tech to the lower income classes.
You may ask, well the tech is already made. And a private jet won’t become affordable to normal folks anytime soon. True, but then the issue is, who determines exactly which items are taxed, and how much?
Most likely a domino effect that was not intended or predicted will occur, causing worse outcomes than the pseudo planned-economy hoped for.
American People Hire High-Powered Lobbyist To Push Interests In Congress
"WASHINGTON—Citing a desire to gain influence in Washington, the American people confirmed Friday that they have hired high-powered D.C. lobbyist Jack Weldon of the firm Patton Boggs to help advance their agenda in Congress.
Known among Beltway insiders for his ability to sway public policy on behalf of massive corporations such as Johnson & Johnson, Monsanto, and AT&T, Weldon, 53, is expected to use his vast network of political connections to give his new client a voice in the legislative process."
https://politics.theonion.com/american-people-hire-high-powe...
Nothing stops citizens from organizing a non-profit to lobby the government. I’ve worked with a few groups that lobby for better healthcare coverage. They go to Washington once to year. They are surprisingly effective in getting changes passed.
Actually being more “grassroots” makes the lobbying easier. It’s harder for a Congressperson to reject a meeting from their constituents.
"In it's grand equality the law forbids both the rich and the poor alike from sleeping under bridges"
I mean, sure the lobbying system is "open" to all, but not everyone can actually participate in it or utilize it, even if they're technically allowed to.
Here is an example of a state bleeding disorders non-profit that meet with Senators in DC every year.
https://cthemophilia.org/events/washington-days-2020/
I also worked with an entrepreneurship group at a college. The head told a story where he went to DC and his senator had their staff type up the law with him there. Brought it to the floor that day. It didn’t pass but I was amazed at what got done through one person’s advocacy.
The most a single company spent on lobbying last year was Facebook at $19.7 million, which is a whopping .17% of their marketing expenses. At the same time, they shelled out $130 million, forming a irrevocable trust to fund a supreme court of moderation decisions. If lobbying were really effective, Facebook would have given money to any Congressperson willing to make any decisions at all, regardless of whether they are pro or anti-censorship. Either way, it's a win for Facebook because they can deflect all blame to the new regulations. The less Zuck has to think about moderation, the more he can focus on making money. The problem is that no representative was ever willing to do so. During the hearings about Section 230, Congress loved to grill Facebook on why they shouldn't have censored this and should censor this other thing. However, none of them attempted meaningful questioning that would aid them in writing a bill to achieve their supposed goals.
The real reason Congress is so ineffective is much more mundane: they have no incentive to do otherwise. Voters love hearing spicy soundbytes, so that's where all Congresspeople's effort goes into. People just want a simple problem that they can point their fingers at and knock down, but the real world doesn't work that way. When you blamed "lobbying", did you bother to look up the myriad existing regulations and their shortcomings? The result of all this is that an increasing number of real decisions are being made by unelected officials, from the SCOTUS effectively legislating Google v. Oracle or the Federal Reserve's increasingly aggressive monetary policy.
https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/donor-demogra...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/money-and-elections-a-c...
In a thread about how a company used 50 shell companies to avoid millions in taxes it seems a little naive to suggest companies don't use similar tactics to fund lobbyists as well.
88% of the cost of the US Fed gov is paid for by taxes by workers (income taxes). Less than 12% comes from all corp/business taxes combined with capital gains (taxing the rich 1%). Business shifting tax burden to workers is a massive scale problem. $3.5 Trillion = US Tax Revenues (2019) and 88% came from workers.