Another Way for the Wealthy to Cheat on Taxes

On this day of yet another assassination, I want to talk about a story that has gotten no notice.

Well, it's a New York Times story that brought it to my attention, so "no notice" is not quite true, but I have not heard anyone talking about it.

The headline in the Star Tribune business section reprint was "Trump lifts rules on tax shelters." Which sounds very boring and I almost didn't read it. The deck reads, "IRS rolls back several law enforcement efforts." Which is a bit more revealing and got me to read the story.

Basically, in keeping with the Trump regime's dedication to dismantling the IRS, they are gutting rules passed under Biden that would prevent large corporations from double dipping on depreciation of expensive equipment. That's right: after the equipment is fully depreciated, large corporations can currently continue to deduct huge amounts of money for no reason.

The rule changes would have raised more than $100 billion over 10 years, but why does the federal government need money? One large petroleum company saved $2.7 billion alone from the way things are, and dropped its effective tax rate to 6% (the statutory rate is 21%).

The same groups and companies that lobbied to get rid of the rule change are lobbying to kill a newly created audit group that would have the knowledge to monitor their complicated legal and tax maneuvers. The audit group is "overreaching," they argue. It's "burdensome."

The highest level IRS staffer targeted is a woman (of course!), Holly Paz. The story says she is a "longtime, respected agency official who ran the division that oversees large business."

Why would we want anyone on the IRS staff who actually knows how big businesses operate? That's only in the public's interest, not the interest of big business! We can't have that, now can we?

I've said before I love the IRS, which I know is an odd thing to say. But I believe in paying taxes as part of a civil society and if you believe in taxes, there has to be a funded, professional agency that collects them. That's the IRS in this country. 

Anyone who doesn't support that is in favor of tax cheats.