Another Whiff

For John, BLUF:  Waving the Bloody Shirt, the author demands that the rich pay their "fair share" of taxes.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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How (Not) to Tax Billionaires

Here is the sub-headline:

A plan from House Democrats targets the merely rich rather than the plutocrats, insuring that our new Gilded Age will continue.

From The New Yorker, by Colunist John Cassidy, 20 September 2021.

Here is the lede plus one:

Ten years after the Occupy Wall Street movement focussed attention on some of the inequities and scams of twenty-first-century capitalism, Democrats on Capitol Hill are in a position to raise taxes on the members of the 0.01 per cent, who have benefitted enormously, not just from rising inequality and the financialization of the economy but also from the covid-19 pandemic.  Will the Democrats seize this opportunity? Will they force the very richest Americans—the likes of Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Carl Icahn—to pay their fair share, or will they confirm the suspicion of many Occupy supporters that the Party, despite talking a good game, is ultimately in hock to the plutocracy?

The political context for a potential tax hike is that the Democrats need to raise a lot of money to help pay for a big spending package aimed at strengthening the social safety net and boosting green energy—which they intend to pass using the budget-reconciliation process.  Last week, Democrats on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee released a proposal that, according to an analysis by Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation, would raise $2.1 trillion over ten years, while largely honoring President Joe Biden’s pledge not to raise taxes on middle-class Americans who earn less than four hundred thousand dollars a year.  (Biden’s definition of “middle class” is an elastic one.) The House proposal is a mixture of the good, the dubious, and the indefensible.
[Highlighting is Mine]

I read the whole article.  Nowhere did I find a definition of "pay their fair share".  What is someone's fair share?  Does it mean tax the better off until their take home pay is the same as a typical employee in their corporation or organization?  Is there some multiple of the minimum wage?♠

Then there is this assertion by the author:

For example, the Biden Administration proposed raising the corporate income tax from twenty-one per cent to twenty-eight per cent—still well below the thirty-five-per-cent rate that applied before 2017.  The House plan would set the top corporate rate at 26.5 per cent.

I could br wrong, but isn't this a tax on consumers?  Don't corporations pass this tax on to those who consume goods or services?  Are there CongressCritters who actually believe this is not a tax on the consumers?  A strange way of not taxing those earning below $400,000 per annum.♥  I believe this kind of proposal needs more explanation.

Mr John Cassidy talks to plutocrats, deploring the fact that they are deferring consumption, and thus avoiding taxes.  That actually seems odd.  Are the tax laws no sufficient to tax perquisites (perks)?.  Maybe that is how this should be framed.

In the mean time, I still wish to know what is a fair share.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  My own proposal is that there should be a special tax on corporations for that executive pay which is 1,000% higher than the lowest pay for the lowest paid individual, normalized to a full year's pay.  That would be $40,000 vs $40,000,000.  More of a difference would be taxed.
♥  President Biden's marker for those who should not be taxed.