How Billionaires Sidestepped the Net Investment Income Tax
How Billionaires Sidestepped the Net Investment Income Tax
To study who was actually paying the new Net Investment Income Tax, ProPublica analyzed its trove of IRS data containing information on thousands of the wealthiest Americans. They identified 17 people who, in the first six years of the law, each shielded at least $1 billion in capital gains from the tax. Together, this small group saved about $1.3 billion in taxes. Most sidestepped the tax because of a gap in the law for business owners, but others, like financier Jeff Yass, eluded the tax in ways that raise questions about enforcement.
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the complexity of the tax law, the distrust of the IRS (government in general), the loss of publicly funded free tax filing software and the equally complex ways taxes cand be avoided (if you have enough money) doesn't bode well for a well funded government to serve it's people.
I've seen a number of simplification proposals (ex: only tax sales on goods) and they all have costly tradeoffs and implications for being seemingly unfair to one group or another.
one has to wonder if there is another way to collect funds that do not feel punitive and do not result in an extremely wealthy class that is able to opt out of contributing in healthier proportions that we see today.
perhaps the solution we have is good enough and just poorly executed due to misinformation and unconstrained power...
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