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U.S. corporate media outlets adore British royalty and often go soft on the Saudi royalty. But must we be led down the primrose path to dynasties of wealth in the United States, with or without the titles of nobility?
Must we accept that those born into the House of Wal-Mart possess, through no doing of their own, wealth and power almost incomprehensible to almost everyone else? Must we resign ourselves to candidate Joe Biden's promise to mega-wealthy campaign funders that "nothing would fundamentally change"?
Click here to email your Representative and Senators to tax the estates of the top fraction of 1 percent.
President Biden himself proposed in April that Congress should invest $80 billion in the IRS to crack down on tax cheating by the nobility (with expectations of at least a 10-fold return on investment). But the 2020 Democratic Party Platform promised much more than that:
"Democrats will take action to reverse the Trump Administration’s tax cuts benefiting the wealthiest Americans and rewarding corporations for shipping American jobs overseas. We will crack down on overseas tax havens and close loopholes that are exploited by the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations. We will make sure the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes. We will make sure investors pay the same tax rates as workers and bring an end to expensive and unproductive tax loopholes, including the carried interest loophole. Corporate tax rates, which were cut sharply by the 2017 Republican tax cut, must be raised, and 'trickle-down' tax cuts must be rejected. Estate taxes should also be raised back to the historical norm."
That's what people were told to vote for. Now top Democrats are busy trying to expand the state and local tax (SALT) deduction to benefit the landed gentry.
But Senator Bernie Sanders and Congressman Jimmy Gomez have introduced the 99.5 Percent Act (S994 and HR2576) which would raise hundreds of billions of dollars that could be directed toward human and environmental emergencies, while simultaneously preventing plutocracy.
Thanks to your efforts, this bill now has 6 Senators and 36 House Members sponsoring. Let's double those numbers this week!
The public gets it. Polling shows strong support. All we have to do is get Congress on board. Click here to email your Representative and Senators.
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The richest 1 percent of people in the United States own nearly 32 percent of the nation’s wealth, while the bottom 50 percent (half the country!) own just 2 percent of the wealth, according to the Federal Reserve.
The 99.5 Percent Act would tax only a fraction of the wealthiest 1 percent, and only after they were dead, only at a very reasonable rate, and taxing wealth that had mostly never been taxed as income.
Scholars have concluded that the United States is an oligarchy in which government policy is largely determined by a wealthy elite.
A growing percentage of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the United States had nothing personally to do with becoming wealthy.
Claims that fixing this with a restored estate tax would harm family farms are simply not true. Claims that preventing royal dynasties would hurt economic competitiveness are less sensible than claims that a billionaire needs another yacht, and more in line with claims that each of a billionaire's grandchildren needs multiple yachts.
Chuck Collins, Director of the Program on Inequality for the Institute for Policy Studies, has commented: "Over the last two decades, the estate tax has become weakened and porous, thanks to billionaire dynastic families that spent millions lobbying to save billions. This culminated with Trump’s 2017 tax reform that raised exemptions to over $22 million for a couple."
The Sanders-Gomez bill would close loopholes that allow mega-wealthy families to reduce their estate tax liability or avoid the tax altogether.
Click here to help make this happen.
After signing the petition, please use the tools on the next webpage to share it with your friends.
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-- The RootsAction.org Team
P.S. Want to receive alerts with information on how you can get involved and support RootsAction's progressive agenda? Sign up at NoHoneymoon.org and check out our volunteer ACTION page to take action now!
Background:
>> Americans for Tax Fairness: "51 National Organizations Urge Support of the Sanders-Gomez Estate Tax Reform Bill: 'For the 99.5% Act'"
>> The Federal Reserve: "Distribution of Household Wealth in the U.S. since 1989"
>> The IRS: "Estate Tax"
>> BBC: "Study: U.S. Is an Oligarchy, Not a Democracy"
www.RootsAction.org
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