Juggling Dynamite

Over the past 30 years, like regulatory enforcement, tax enforcement against the wealthiest corporations and individuals has declined by design in most of the developed world.  Canada remains a world-famous haven of tolerance for big tax avoiders, see:  CRA has found 35 cases of tax dodging in The Panama Papers leak, 5 years later:

Five years after one of the world’s biggest leaks of financial records exposed the tax-haven dealings of politicians, athletes, celebrities and mobsters, the Canada Revenue Agency has found missing money in 35 of the hundreds of Canadian cases it has analyzed.

The agency hasn’t gotten a single criminal charge filed against anyone as a result of the Panama Papers.

Other countries have, however, filed tax-evasion charges, secured convictions and recouped hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes from information found in the Panama Papers.

Collecting what’s lawfully owed is an obvious area to invest government resources for much-needed ‘yield’ today.  The video exchange below highlights the issues well.

I’m introducing another bill for dedicated, mandatory funding for the IRS to enforce the tax laws already on the books for the ultra-rich and giant corporations. The IRS should have more resources to do its job and make the wealthy pay their fair share. pic.twitter.com/0TmKEDglsY

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) April 27, 2021

Warren succinctly articulates the overwhelming case for a minimum federal corporate tax rate in this segment.  The most profitable companies paying zero to little is not defensible.

“What’s happening right now in America, is these small businesses … pay their taxes at the full rate. They got to pay the whole thing,” Warren said. “You look at businesses like FedEx and Nike, businesses like Amazon, and they pay zero. Right now there’s a thumb on the scale in the tax part of this, and that is a thumb to help the giants.” Here is a direct video link.

Confident they had beaten Covid, government officials relaxed restrictions on virtually all activities, including weddings, political rallies and religious gatherings. The northern town of Haridwar held one of the world’s biggest gatherings this month, with millions of people celebrating the Hindu festival Kumbh Mela.

By mid-March, though, the virus was beginning to reassert itself. A major factor appears to be that many people who previously had mild or asymptomatic cases of Covid remained vulnerable to it. (A recent academic study, done in China, suggests that mild cases confer only limited immunity.) The emergence of contagious new variants is playing a role, too. This combination — less immunity than many people thought, new variants and a resumption of activities — seems to have led to multiple superspreader events…See NY Times reporting here.

Here is a direct video link to a CNN report.