I would feel remiss if someone didn’t post about taxes on the day that is seared into our collective consciousness every year.

So how about a few random tax-related items in no particular order:

Simon Rosenberg reminds us that Trump is responsible for one of the largest tax increases in history via his inane fixation with tariffs (again, tariffs are taxes on imported goods paid at the point of import in the U.S. by the company/person importing the goods, NOT by the foreign country/people selling the goods to the U.S.)

David Bier of the Cato Institute informs us that immigrants pay more in taxes than the average person.

The indomitable Robert Reich reminds us that many corporations pay lower tax rates than the average Joa and Jane America. I’ll remind everyone that the corporate tax rate stayed around 48–52% for over three decades (1952-1986) and the two biggest reductions happened under Reagan (from 46% to 34%) and Trump (from 35% to 21%). In addition, corporate tax receipts as a percentage of all federal tax receipts range from the 40+% ranged during WWII to 6-8% durign the Reagan tax cuts and down from approx. 9% to the 6% range again after the Trump/Republican 2017 Tax Cuts.

Since the inception of the federal income tax in 1913 (excluding the first 3 years when it was in the low single digits), the average marginal tax rate for top earners is 57.9%. The median is 59.5% (meaning for half the years we have had an income tax, the top marginal rate has been above 60%). During the “Golden Years” of U.S. middle class growth, 1944 - 1963, the top marginal tax rate was 91%! The ONLY periods when the top marginal rate was below 50% is prior to the Great Depression, during and after the Reagan years leading up to the Great Recession and currently, where it sits at 37%.

A HUGE amount of taxes goes uncollected every year. Estimates range from over $600 billion to $1 trillion (ranging somewhere between 13 - 20% of income taxes owed). Of course, the vast majority of that is tax avoidance by the rich.

Finally, the IRS is simply the Accounts Receivable Department for the United States, a department that nearly every single private sector business entity has in order to ensure they get paid what is owed to them. Nonetheless, Republicans have consistently reduced funding for the IRS, and after Biden restored funding - primarily for audits of rich people - Republicans used a rarely used maneuver called “rescission” to claw back the additional funding Biden and a Democratic Congress passed into law.

So Happy Tax Day. Or should I say, Wealth Upward Redistribution Day (rolls right off the tongue, doesn’t it?!), when wealthy individuals and corporations get to avoid paying their fair share while the rest of us rubes pay what we must.

PS - hello Mayor Mamdani (must watch)!