The billionaires, the taxes, the strange surprises and the double standards
The ProPublica survey on the super-rich Americans read and commented on by Fulvio Coltorti, former head of Mediobanca's studies and research area
On the Corriere the (few) taxes of the super billionaires
Every now and then there is this (comic) wave of indignation towards billionaires who pay no taxes except for a few pennies. Evidently, those with a lot of money can afford good consultants. First of all, to move the “official” sources of their income abroad.
Strange that there is indignation "after" and not "before" these shifts! See the Agnellis and their Holland where they have transferred the most important activities in the utter disinterest of the governments in office: market operations, an economy minister justified himself today with the presidency of a large bank.
In words these guys would be willing to pay more … but the implementation phase never followed.
The recent agreement on corporate taxes is (or perhaps will be) a marginal parenthesis. Here there are "Italian" people who have moved their assets abroad and even their residence. For those who earn large sums such as the top managers of large companies, submitting to the Swiss, Monegasque or even London tax rates is a very positive sum game. The burdens rest on the shoulders of "honest" citizens. Yes, because evasion, avoidance and fake transfers are a great dishonesty.
It is not only the rich Italians who do this, but this does not matter. Will there be room for conscience and morals in this new national spirit of rebirth?
Obviously of the rulers, because nothing is to be expected from those directly involved.
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EXCERPT FROM AN ARTICLE FROM CORRIERE DELLA SERA:
The super rich are getting richer, the latest dossier on inequalities published by Oxfam also said. But in the United States they count on one more help: the loopholes offered by the taxman committed to taxing income from work more than assets. This was revealed by an investigation by ProPublica – in 2010 the first online journalism site to win a Pulitzer – with data obtained from a mole from the IRS, the Internal Revenue Service, the local Revenue Agency. The numbers speak for themselves. The 25 richest in America, Amazon's Jeff Bezos in the lead (and then Warren Buffett, Mike Bloomberg, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and even that George Soros long in the sights of conspirators) between 2014 and 2018 have paid figures ridiculous or even nothing on their income, because these only amount to a fraction of their assets. And this is because the "capital gains" on equity investments, real estate, yachts (Bezos just bought a 400 million dollar one) and other investments, under the current system, are not recognized as "taxable income" until they are sold. . Here, then, is that the 25 Scrooge – 0.1 of that 1% targeted by the guys from "Occupy Wall Street" who ten years ago were the first to take to the streets and ask for even the rich to be taxed more equitably – a Faced with a collective wealth of 401 billion dollars in those years, they paid "just" 13.6 billion in federal taxes. Equal to a collective tax rate of approximately 3.4%. A thorny investigation, published a few days after the presentation of President Joe Biden's plan, aimed at increasing taxes for the highest income brackets from 37 to 39.6 percent.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/i-miliardari-le-tasse-le-strane-sorprese-e-la-doppia-morale/ on Wed, 09 Jun 2021 07:55:16 +0000.