Analysis: Ultra Rich Paying Lower Tax Rate Than Working Class

Keep this in mind when you file your tax returns, and when you vote:

A new book-length study on the tax burden of the ultrarich begins with a startling finding: In 2018, for the first time in history, America’s richest billionaires paid a lower effective tax rate than the working class.

“The Triumph of Injustice,” by economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman of the University of California at Berkeley, presents a first-of-its kind analysis of Americans’ effective tax rates since the 1960s. It finds that in 2018 the average effective tax rate paid by the richest 400 families in the country was 23 percent, a full percentage point lower than the 24.2 percent rate paid by the bottom half of American households. [snip]

But the tipping point came in 2017, with the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The legislation, championed by President Trump and then-House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, was a windfall for the wealthy: It lowered the top income tax bracket and slashed the corporate tax rate.

By 2018, according to Saez and Zucman, the rich were already enjoying the fruits of that legislation: The average effective tax rate paid by the top 0.1 percent of households dropped by 2.5 percentage points. The benefits the bill’s supporters promised — higher rates of growth and business investment and a shrinking deficit — have largely failed to materialize.  (our emphasis)

Fraud and con man Donald "Rump" Trump benefited nicely from the Republican- passed tax cut for the wealthy, as did the American oligarchs who continue to pour money into his campaign and generally prop up their toadies in the rotted- out Republican Party, while those same oligarchs garner Ambassadorships enabling them to cover- up Trump's abuses of power =cough= Gordon Sondland =cough=.

Remember this, too, every time you hear a Republican or a media enabler yap about the Democrats' "socialist plans," which invariably refers to a better health care system, fair minimum wage, equal pay for equal work, and a tax system that eliminates an abuse like this.