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Interesting fact of the day:
In the USA current estimates have the total Tax Avoidance of the top 1% wealthy at 500 million per year collectively or 5 trillion per decade.
By comparison the total tax avoidance of all the middle class and poor who work under the table totals about 2 trillion per year, four times more.
Remind me again how the rich avoiding taxes are the main problem?
Sources:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/19/tax-avoidance-by-the-rich-could-top-5-trillion-in-next-decade.html
@freemo The discussion in this thread is quite interesting, but disregarding that for a moment I am quite confused by one major thing.
How is a group that is two orders of magnitute smaller and creates less than one order of magnitude less tax avoidance an argument _against_ it being a problem?
@freemo Yeah, but this is also part of the problem (at least from the point of view of people who complain about it).
@timorl The question I really wanted to answer,a nd i cant really say for sure yet as the data is spotty... who avoids more taxes, the rich or the poor/lower class..
On the one hand when the rich avoid taxes they are probably avoiding it by the millions.
On the other hand I know tons of lower class individiuals who all work under the table, I think the figure was 45% IIRC of all americans work under the table, mostly lower class individuals I would think.
So it really wouldnt surprise me if the lower class avoid more taxes than the rich, especially considering that most rich I know are kinda anal about making sure they dont do anything illegal on their taxes.
But I really don know and I'd like that answered. Any secondary problems (like the one you pointed out) for me is largely a tangent to that point. Worth discussing surely, but a separate topic mostly.
@timorl Im not sure the size of the population itself is so important as the amount of money they represent. The top 1% in the USA IIRC represents 50% of the wealth. so seems like a fair cut off point IMO.