Taxing the Rich Will Make Our Country Fairer for All
Taxing the ultra-rich is highly popular and will address many of America’s economic and social disparities.
By Noah Streng
Public Citizen’s allies in the tax fairness fight—the Progressive Caucus Action Fund, Americans for Tax Fairness, the National Women’s Law Center, the Center for American Progress, and Patriotic Millionaires– held a virtual briefing August 17 to discuss how our tax code is rigged to benefit the wealthy and what the Biden Administration and Congressional Democrats would do to fix it.
A recent ProPublica exposé uncovered that billionaires pay very little (and sometimes nothing) in taxes each year. Multinational corporations can also go tax-free. This tax injustice contributes to our nation’s increasing wealth and income gaps. American billionaires have increased their wealth by $1.8 trillion during the pandemic while millions of working Americans struggle to pay for basic necessities.
The panel explained the Biden administration’s Build Back Better agenda, which would help combat wealth inequality and promote tax fairness. Biden’s plans focus on more fairly taxing capital gains and inherited wealth, raising marginal tax rates on high income earners, closing tax loopholes and improving IRS enforcement to prevent wealthy tax cheats from gaming the system. Combined, these proposals are estimated to raise $1.5 trillion. Through ensuring corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share, the Biden administration plans to spend this revenue on historic public investments in healthcare, childcare, education, infrastructure, COVID-19 relief, and other much-needed social services.
For too long, corporations and the wealthy have gotten away with paying next to nothing in taxes because of their rigging of our political and economic system in their favor. Every day, billionaires and corporations benefit from our public schools, roads, bridges, and other public services funded by taxes. Through our labor, workers built the billionaire class. It’s past time for the rich to pay their debt back to society and pay their fair share of taxes. Congress must act to enact President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda and create a tax system that works for all of us, not just the 1%.
We need a mass movement of working people to pressure Congress into centering the needs of working families over their corporate and billionaire donors. Get involved in the fight for tax fairness and sign your name on our petition to urge Congress to fix our tax system right away. If we stand united, a better world is possible.