MauledAgain

Today is Thanksgiving. For as long as I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve been sharing a Thanksgiving post to express my gratitude for a variety of people, events, and things. Aside from 2008, when I did not post and I don’t have any recollection of why or how that happened, I’ve dedicated a post on or around Thanksgiving. I started in 2004, with Giving Thanks, and continued in 2005 with A Tax Thanksgiving, in 2006 with Giving Thanks, Again, in 2007 with Actio Gratiarum, in 2009 with Gratias Vectigalibus, in 2010 with Being Thankful for User Fees and Taxes, in 2011 with Two Short Words, Thank You, in 2012 with A Thanksgiving Litany, in 2013 with “Don’t Forget to Say Thank-You”, in 2014 with Giving Thanks: “No, Thank YOU!” , in 2015 with Thanks Again!, in 2016 with Thankfully Repetitive, in 2017 with Never-Ending Thanks, in 2018 with Particularly Thankful This Time Around, in 2019 with Quest'anno è il Ringraziamento, and in 2020 with Different, But Thanksgiving Nonetheless.

As I stated the past eight years, “I have presented litanies, bursts of Latin, descriptions of events and experiences for which I have been thankful, names of people and groups for whom I have appreciation, and situations for which I have offered gratitude. Together, these separate lists become a long catalog, and as I have done in previous years, I will do a lawyerly thing and incorporate them by reference. Why? Because I continue to be thankful for past blessings, and because some of those appreciated things continue even to this day.” When I re-read those lists, I realized that the people, events, and things for which I am appreciative are far from obsolete.

So once again I will look back at the past twelve months, and remember the people, events, and things for whom and for which I give thanks. If some of these seem repetitive, they are, for there are gifts in life that keep on giving:

• I am thankful for a wonderful son, daughter, daughter-in-law, grandson, and granddaughter.
  
• I am thankful for all the people who continue to help update the multiple family trees I develop, maintain, update, and publish.
  
• I am thankful for the cousins I have met through FTDNA, ancestry, and 23andme, who I did not know existed, and for the opportunity to get in touch with cousins who I knew existed but with whom I had no contact until they showed up on one or more of those genetic genealogy sites.
• I am thankful that we found a way for my congregation’s choir to resume singing, using special masks and distancing, for its continuing toleration of me as its president, and for our Minister of Music, who has guided the choir through a long period of uncertainty and unexpected challenges.
  
• I am thankful that we are once again able to gather in the sanctuary for worship, and, yes, that I continue to ring the narthex bell.
  
• I am thankful for having had the opportunity to continue teaching law courses, for the patience of students who had to endure another Zoom session last spring even though classes had returned to the building, because of social distancing class size challenges that affected the course I was teaching.
  
• I am thankful that, barring some extraordinary obstacle, I return to the classroom for next semester’s course.
  
• I am thankful for all the people in the world who continue to fight ignorance, crime, terror, evil, and corruption.
  
• I am thankful for people being willing to read the things I write.

Fifteen years ago, in Giving Thanks, Again, I shared my Thanksgiving advice. I liked it so much that I repeated it again, in 2009 in Gratias Vectigalibus, yet again in 2013 in “Don’t Forget to Say Thank-You”, still again in 2014 in Giving Thanks: “No, Thank YOU!” , even yet again in 2015 in Thanks Again!, even still again in Thankfully Repetitive, yet once more in Never-Ending Thanks, yet even once more in Particularly Thankful This Time Around, again in Quest'anno è il Ringraziamento, and last year in Different, But Thanksgiving Nonetheless. For me, it does not lose its impact:

Have a Happy Thanksgiving. Set aside the hustle and bustle of life. Meet up with people who matter to you. Share your stories. Enjoy a good meal. Tell jokes. Sing. Laugh. Watch a parade or a football game, or both, or many. Pitch in. Carve the turkey. Wash some dishes. Help a little kid cut a piece of pie. Go outside and take a deep breath. Stare at the sky for a minute. Listen for the birds. Count the stars. Then go back inside and have seconds or thirds. Record the day in memory, so that you can retrieve it in several months when you need some strength.

I am thankful to have the opportunity to share those words yet again. And I am thankful that even in another pandemic-affected Thanksgiving it is possible for even more of us to do all of those things, and for others of us to most of those things.

Section 9901(c) of the American Rescue Plan Act provides roughly $195 billion to be allocated among the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and specified territories to be used for one or more of four purposes: (1) providing assistance to “households, small businesses, and nonprofits” and “impacted industries such as tourism, travel, and hospitality”; (2) responding “to workers performing essential work during the COVID-19 public health emergency by providing premium pay to eligible workers”; (3) making up for pandemic-related reductions in state government revenue; and (4) paying for “necessary investments in water, sewer, or broadband infrastructure.” Id. § 802(c)(1)(A-D). The legislation also prohibited the states and territories from putting the money into “any pension fund,” or using the funds to “directly or indirectly offset a reduction in the net tax revenue of such State or territory resulting from a change in law, regulation, or administrative interpretation during the covered period that reduces any tax (by providing for a reduction in a rate, a rebate, a deduction, a credit, or otherwise) or delays the imposition of any tax or tax increase.” A group of states challenged the second restriction, and a few days ago a federal district judge, in West Virginia v. U.S. Dept. of Treasury held that the restriction is inconsistent with the limitations placed on the spending clause by Supreme Court precedent.

Id. § 802(c)(2)(A). The phrase “directly or indirectly offset” is not defined in the ARPA. The ARPA requires any State that receives funds to “provid[e] a detailed accounting” to the Secretary of “all modifications to the State's . . . tax revenue sources” for the covered period, as well as “such other information as the Secretary may require for the administration of” the Tax Mandate. Id. § 802(d)(2). The Secretary can recoup funds that she interprets were used in violation of the Tax Mandate. Id. § 802(e)(1). The Tax Mandate's “covered period” extends from March 3, 2021, until all funds “have been expended or returned to, or recovered by, the Secretary.” Id. § 802(g)(1). The ARPA also authorizes the Secretary “to issue such regulations as may be necessary or appropriate to carry out” the applicable statutory provisions. Id. § 802(f). The principal problem is that the legislation does not describe how it can be determined if the funds are used to directly or indirectly reduce state taxes.

To me, it seems as though the problem would not have arisen had the language of section 9901(c) been drafted more carefully. To ensure that the funds were used for the intended purposes, the legislation could have provided that the state demonstrate that the amount it spent for each of the four purposes during the covered period equaled or exceeded the average annual amount it had spent on each purpose during the, say, five-year period preceding the date of enactment of the legislation multiplied by the number of years in the covered period. In other words, require the states to select one or more of the four purposes and then increase the amount spent on each purpose. That would prevent the funds from being used to reduce taxes because reducing taxes would require the state to spend less than the required amount on the selected purposes which would cause a reduction in the funds being disbursed to the state. If the state reduced taxes in order to cut funding for purposes other than the four purposes, that would not involve using the allocated funds for the required increases in the four specified purposes. Thus, for example, a state could cut its gasoline tax if that tax was dedicated solely for highway infrastructure repair and maintenance, not one of the four specified purposes, and reduce spending on highway infrastructure repair and maintenance.

In all fairness, careful drafting takes time. Like most legislation, the American Rescue Plan Act was amended and altered in the hours leading up to passage. When faced with a deadline embedded in “get this drafted within the next 30 minutes,” the legislative language becomes more conceptual and theoretical rather than useful for practical application, which was the core of the complaint raised by state officials. This problem is just one example of how the Congress is dysfunctional in meeting its responsibility to tend to the legislative needs of the nation.

Six days ago, in SALT Cap Conundrum: The Solution Is Easy, I proposed a solution to the SALT cap conundrum. An existing proposal to eliminate the cap on the state and local tax deduction would disproportionately benefit the wealthy. So I suggested that the cap should be a fixed amount, adjusted for inflation, reduced by ten percent of the taxpayer’s modified adjusted gross income. I did not get into the details of defining modified adjusted gross income other than suggesting that it include tax-exempt income. I selected $40,000 as the initial fixed amount because that amount, applied to the formula, would cause little or no loss of the state and local tax deduction for taxpayers with less than $400,000 of modified adjusted gross income, the breakpoint being used in the proposed legislation for other changes. My proposal would mean that taxpayers with $400,000 or more of modified adjusted gross income would be denied the state and local tax deduction.

I then invited anyone with “connections” to those who are drafting the legislation or engaging in negotiations to share this proposal, by sharing the URL for this post. So perhaps it is coincidence that yesterday, according to this Norman Transcript article and this Bloomberg report, among others, Senator Bernie Sanders announced that he and some of his colleagues are “working on a plan that would give an unlimited deduction on federal returns for state and local taxes, or SALT, under a certain income level that is still being negotiated.” His plan, unlike mine, would permit the wealthy to continue deducting up to $10,000 of state and local taxes. He added that he and his colleagues “are still discussing how the phase out of the unlimited write-offs would work.” My proposal isn’t the only way to accomplish this, but I am guessing that it, or at least its phase-out mechanism, is on the table. But don’t let that stop anyone with “connections” to share my proposal, as the more times it reaches the legislative staff, the more attention it will get.

The channel guide summary of a Justice with Judge Mablean episode caught my eye, for a reason I will describe below. As readers of MauledAgain know, when I get a chance to watch a television court show episode, I do so to see if a tax twist turns up in the proceedings. I have commented on television court show episodes in posts such as Judge Judy and Tax Law, Judge Judy and Tax Law Part II, TV Judge Gets Tax Observation Correct, The (Tax) Fraud Epidemic, Tax Re-Visits Judge Judy, Foolish Tax Filing Decisions Disclosed to Judge Judy, So Does Anyone Pay Taxes?, Learning About Tax from the Judge. Judy, That Is, Tax Fraud in the People’s Court, More Tax Fraud, This Time in Judge Judy’s Court, You Mean That Tax Refund Isn’t for Me? Really?, Law and Genealogy Meeting In An Interesting Way, How Is This Not Tax Fraud?, A Court Case in Which All of Them Miss The Tax Point, Judge Judy Almost Eliminates the National Debt, Judge Judy Tells Litigant to Contact the IRS, People’s Court: So Who Did the Tax Cheating?, “I’ll Pay You (Back) When I Get My Tax Refund”, Be Careful When Paying Another Person’s Tax Preparation Fee, Gross Income from Dating?, Preparing Someone’s Tax Return Without Permission, When Someone Else Claims You as a Dependent on Their Tax Return and You Disagree, Does Refusal to Provide a Receipt Suggest Tax Fraud Underway?, When Tax Scammers Sue Each Other, One of the Reasons Tax Law Is Complicated, An Easy Tax Issue for Judge Judy, Another Easy Tax Issue for Judge Judy, Yet Another Easy Tax Issue for Judge Judy, Be Careful When Selecting and Dealing with a Tax Return Preparer, Fighting Over a Tax Refund, Another Tax Return Preparer Meets Judge Judy, Judge Judy Identifies Breach of a Tax Return Contract, When Tax Return Preparation Just Isn’t Enough, Fighting Over Tax Dependents When There Is No Evidence, If It’s Not Your Tax Refund, You Cannot Keep the Money, Contracts With Respect to Tax Refunds Should Be In Writing, Admitting to Tax Fraud When Litigating Something Else, When the Tax Software Goes Awry. How Not to Handle a Tax Refund, Car Purchase Case Delivers Surprise Tax Stunt, Wider Consequences of a Cash Only Tax Technique, Was Tax Avoidance the Reason for This Bizarre Transaction?, Was It Tax Fraud?, Need Money to Pay Taxes? How Not To Get It, When Needing Tax Advice, Don’t Just “Google It”, Re-examining Damages When Tax Software Goes Awry, How Is Tax Relevant in This Contract Case?, Does Failure to Pay Real Property Taxes Make the Owner a Squatter?, Beware of the Partner’s Tax Lien, Trying to Make Sense of a “Conspiracy to Commit Tax Fraud”, Tax Payment Failure Exposes Auto Registration and Identity Fraud, and A Taxing WhatAboutIsm Attempt.

The episode in question was season 7, episode 50, entitled, ““Broken Prom Promise & Help a Brotha Out.” The facts are amusing and yet instructive. The plaintiff and defendant are twins. The twins go out one evening and have a good time. The next morning, the defendant twin is so hung over that he calls the plaintiff twin and asks him to fill in for him at his job as a truck driver at an airport. Both twins testified that throughout their lives they had switched places. So the defendant twin goes to the airport, and drives the truck. When asked by the judge what would have happened had he simply not showed up, the plaintiff twin responded that he probably would have been suspended or perhaps even fired.

So the defendant twin, tired from the previous evening, decided to pull the truck over on the tarmac to take a quick nap. Somehow, as he was pulling over, he dozed off for a moment and was jarred awake from his truck hitting another truck. A supervisor or someone with the employer then suspended the employee twin for a week. The plaintiff twin, the one who was suspended, sued his brother for lost wages.

The judge held that Judge ruled that because the defendant twin replaced the plaintiff twin, the defendant twin “became” the plaintiff twin, so that legally it was the plaintiff twin who was treated as having hit the truck, and thus the suspension was on account of the plaintiff twin’s actions, and not the actions of defendant twin. Accordingly, the judge held for the defendant twin. I wonder, though, if the defendant twin had run over and killed a third party, which twin would be prosecuted for that act.

The episode’s summary, and then the episode itself, reminded me of a series of experiences I had early in my teaching career. One Friday afternoon, one of the students in the basic tax class came into my office with a tax question. The facts that he posited, and the way he phrased the question seemed a bit unusual but I attributed it to nervousness or insecurity or some other sort of uncertainty. As I started to reply, I heard lots of laughter in the hallway. In came several students, including, wait, one that looked totally identical to the one in my office. It turned out that the student had a twin brother, who, I learned, was in medical school.

A few weeks later they tried the stunt again. It didn’t work. For some reason I had noticed what the student twin was wearing in class that day – I think it was a t-shirt with a particular Philadelphia sports team logo – so when the medical student twin came in wearing a different shirt and with another fabricated tax question, I simply responded by asking what sort of medical test would be required. Immediately there was laughter from the hallway, and the two twins realized why the stunt failed.

Another few weeks go by, and in comes the student twin. Surely it was him, as he was wearing what he had been wearing in class that day, another Philadelphia sports team t-shirt but not the same team as the last time he stepped in. So he poses his pretensive tax question, and I begin to answer, and again there is laughter from the hallway. It turned out that the two twins had exchanged clothes just before coming to my office.

I lost touch with the twins. A few years ago, I am listening to a sports radio talk show and the host interviews a sports medicine doctor. The doctor’s surname matches that of the two twins. Is it him? He begins to speak, and indeed, it must be him. Because I was driving, I resisted the temptation to call into the show and try to pull a retaliatory stunt by asking a legal question of the doctor and then noting that “perhaps your brother would know.”

No, I am not going to disclose their names. Perhaps one of them will read this commentary and react. I doubt it. Perhaps one of the many students who were in on the pranks, will recognize them from reading this commentary and let them know that their prank has been memorialized in a blog post decades later. The good news is that unlike the twins in the Justice with Judge Mablean episode, these two’s switching prank did not turn out badly.

In 2015, Kenneth Warren Sauter received $20,712 from the Social Security Administration which it reported on a Form SSA-1099. He also received $97,188 from Alma Products Holdings, Inc., which it reported on a Form 1099-MISC. When he filed his 2015 federal income tax return, Sauter reported the income from the Social Security Administration but not the income from Alma Products. The IRS issued a notice of deficiency, Sauter filed a petition in the Tax Court, the IRS moved for summary judgment, Sauter did not respond, and the Tax Court granted the IRS’ motion, finding Sauter’s arguments in his petition to be frivolous and without merit.

Sauter appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He did not dispute having received the $97,188 from Alma Products, but argued that the income is not taxable because “trade or business” in Internal Revenue Code section 7701(a)(26) is defined as “includ[ing] the performance of the functions of a public officer,” and, thus, only those trade or business activities that can be defined as “the performance of the functions of a public office” are taxable. In 2019, the Court of Appeals explained that section 61(a)(6) defines “gross income” as “all income from whatever source derived, including . . . [c]ompensation for services.” I.R.C. § 61(a). It explained that section 7701(c) further clarifies that “includes” and “including” when used in a definition “shall not be deemed to exclude other things otherwise within the meaning of the term defined.” Id. at § 7701(c). Agreeing with the Tax Court that this argument was frivolous and without merit, the Court of Appeals affirmed the Tax Court’s judgment.

On his 2016 federal income tax return, Sauter did not report $85,106 that he received from Alma Products. Again, the IRS, after issuing a Form CP2000 to Sauter and getting a reply reciting the same argument rejected by the Tax Court and the Court of Appeals, issued a notice of deficiency. Again, Sauter raised the same rejected argument, and again the Tax Court entered summary judgment pursuant to the IRS motion for summary judgment. It also imposed a penalty of $2,500 under section 6673(a)(1)(B), noting that Sauter had been warned at least three times in dealing with his 2016 return that his argument was frivolous and without merit.

Again, Sauter appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Again, he did not dispute having received the $85,106 from Alma Products. Again, he raised the same argument he had raised previously. Again, earlier this week, the Court of Appeals rejected the argument as frivolous, pointing out that it had previously been presented with the same argument by Sauter and had concluded it was frivolous. As for the penalty, the Court of Appeals held that the Tax Court did not abuse its discretion when it imposed a penalty on a taxpayer who continued to advance “long-defunct arguments,” had been warned multiple times of the possibility of penalties, and had been put on notice that the Court of Appeals had previously concluded that his argument was frivolous. The Court of Appeals affirmed the Tax Court decision in its entirety.

Understanding that a definition that contains an “including” phrase does not restrict the application of the definition to items listed after the word “including” is not something limited to law, and is something many people not trained in law understand. Yet, it is possible that someone reading such a definition might be confused or otherwise not quite grasp the difference between the word “including” and the phrase “is limited to.” That is ignorance. Ignorance can be cured, and is cured through education. The Tax Court and the Court of Appeals educated Sauter multiple times with respect to the litigation involving his 2015 tax return. When Sauter persisted in advancing the same rejected argument, it was no longer a matter of ignorance. It was a matter of obstinance. Ignorance, of course, poses an deep threat to people and to nations. Obstinance, which is embraced ignorance, is an even greater danger, posing an existential threat to people, nations, and democracy.

Again I turn to commentary by Tom Giovanetti of the Institute for Policy Innovation, but this time to agree with an important point he makes about the SALT cap. The SALT cap is a limit on how much state and local taxes paid by a taxpayer can be deducted on the taxpayer’s federal income tax return. Ostensibly, it is targeted at the wealthy, because the wealthy generally pay more state and local taxes than do those who are not wealthy. However, the cap is set at an amount, primarily $10,000. This causes a reduction not only in how much wealthy taxpayers can deduct but also how much can be deducted by many middle-class taxpayers.

For that reason, some Democratic members of Congress want to repeal the SALT cap and return to the uncapped deduction for state and local taxes that existed before the 2017 tax legislation was enacted. Giovanetti, in Democrats' Massive Tax Cut for the Wealthy correctly points out that repeal of the cap would be a much bigger benefit for the wealthy than for a anyone else. He is correct. We could quibble over his claim that it is upper-income households and especially the wealthy who pay more than $10,000 in state and local taxes and thus are affected by the SALT cap, because there are taxpayers caught by the cap who surely are not “upper-income.” We also could quibble over how much the cap hurts the wealthy, because the benefit to the wealthy of an uncapped state and local tax deduction pales in comparison to the tax breaks they get from things such as depreciation deductions on real estate that is not depreciating, the step-up in basis at death, reduced tax rates, charitable contribution deductions for the value of appreciated property without taxation of the inherent gain, and dozens more provisions designed to help starving oligarchs, to say nothing of low audit rates. But those issues matter not to finding a solution to the SALT cap problem.

Here is what I think is the best idea for dealing with the SALT cap. The cap should not be a fixed amount. It should be a fixed amount, adjusted for inflation, reduced by ten percent of the taxpayer’s modified adjusted gross income. I’m open to which definition of modified gross income is used, but certainly tax-exempt income should be included. Here are some examples. Set the cap at $40,000 minus ten percent of adjusted gross income. What is the outcome? For someone with adjusted gross income of $400,000 or more, the cap would be zero, that is, no deduction for state and local taxes. For someone with adjusted gross income of $100,000, the cap would be $30,000, though taxpayers with adjusted gross income rarely, if ever, pay state and local taxes anywhere near $30,000. For someone with adjusted gross income of $50,000, the cap would be $35,000, though again, that taxpayer would not be paying that much in state and local taxes.

Why did I pick $40,000 as the fixed amount? Because that amount, applied to the formula, would cause little or no loss of the state and local tax deduction for taxpayers with less than $400,000 of modified adjusted gross income, the breakpoint being used in the proposed legislation for other changes. It also means that taxpayers with $400,000 or more of modified adjusted gross income would be denied the state and local tax deduction. This certainly would change the proposal from a repeal that benefits the wealthy more than other taxpayers to one that spares taxpayers who are not wealthy from the SALT cap while leaving it in place for the wealthy.

Supporters of the SALT cap cannot object to my proposal unless they want the SALT cap kept in place for the taxpayers who are not wealthy but who are caught by the cap. That would be rather telling. Opponents of the SALT cap cannot object to my proposal unless they are supporters of letting those with $400,000 or more of modified adjusted gross income have a deduction for state and local taxes of at least $10,000 if not an unlimited deduction. That, too, would be rather telling.

I invite anyone with “connections” to those who are drafting the legislation or engaging in negotiations to share this proposal, by sharing the URL for this post. I'm good at some things, but being my own publicist isn't one of them. But please attribute it to me so that if anyone wants to criticize it you can step aside and let the counter-arguments come my way. And, of course, if it gains traction, well, I don’t mind being credited.

Tom Giovanetti, of the Institute for Policy Innovation, thinks that, to quote the headline of recent IPI commenatry that “It's Impossible to Accurately Tax an Unrealized Gain.” His argument rests on the premise that the only way to determine “true value of something” is to wait until a willing seller and a willing buyer provide that information by engaging in a presumably arms’-length transaction. He argues that “Value cannot be accurately determined without a transaction between a willing buyer and a willing seller.” Therefore, he argues, “that’s just one reason why the tax on unrealized gains being proposed by some Democrats is such a terrible idea.”

Yet tax law, whether based on income or property value, contract law, tort law, and many other areas of law function smoothly in determining value without the benefit of an actual purchase and sale of the item in question. Local real estate taxes are assessed on the computed market value of real properties. Estate taxes and state inheritance taxes are computed by determining the value of property owned by a decedent or inherited by a beneficiary without that property having been sold to a willing buyer. Insurance claims on stolen or totaled vehicles are paid based on value reflecting other transactions. Losses from breach of contract are calculated without actual transactions having taken place. Business school classes on valuation take students through the details of the comparable sales method, the discounted cash flow method, the earnings multiplier method, and similar analytical approaches.

Giovanetti argues, “So an unrealized gain simply cannot be accurately valued, and how can you accurately tax wealth that cannot accurately be valued? You can’t. And that’s one of the reasons why we have never even attempted to tax unrealized gains.” On that score, he is wrong. Including unrealized gain in gross income already exists in the federal income tax law. Take a look, for example, at Internal Revenue Code section 475 (and state statutes based on it). The computation is based on the listed market price of securities, which is nothing more than a proposed price similar to the asking prices given by Giovanetti as examples of why it supposedly is impossible to put a value on something until that something is actually sold. The battle Giovanetti is fighting was lost long ago, when section 475 was enacted.

That’s not to say that taxing unrealized gains on everything every year is necessarily a good idea. There are worthwhile arguments against the idea, based on issues of liquidity, market disruption, administrability, and ease of avoidance. With those stronger arguments available, it makes no sense to rely on a “cannot determine the true value of something without a sale” objection. If that is perceived as the strongest, or only, argument being offered in opposition to the taxation of unrealized gains, section 475 might soon be expanded beyond the narrow set of situations to which it currently applies.

Of course, the idea that taxation should not take place until something is sold, when coupled with the step-up in basis at death, provides the foundation for the construction of the oligarchic dynasties that are causing far more problems for the nation than the few benefits, if any, that trickle down to the not-wealthy from these gargantuan money piles. Eliminating the step-up in basis at death does nothing to solve the problem because properties are passed from one generation of oligarchs to the next. A wealth tax is problematic, not only because of the administrability and evasion issues, but also because in years when wealth decreases, payments would flow from government to oligarch (not that government funds don’t already flow in that direction, outside of the spotlight that is aimed on payments to the impoverished and struggling middle class).

Perhaps the answer is to undo the cause of the wealth accumulation. Here is something to ponder. What would the nation’s economy look like, and what would the economic situation for the poor, the middle class, the wealthy, and the ultrarich look like if federal and state income tax rates had remained where they were when this nation was in the heyday of the “greatness” that so many want to revive? Why not undo the slide from those years of “greatness” by computing what each individual and corporation would have paid in income tax in each of the last 40 years (going back to when the oligarch takeover began), subtracting what was paid, computing interest, and sending invoices to the taxpayers or their successors in interest, with an exemption for all incomes under, say, $1,000,000 in 2021 dollars adjusted for each year’s equivalent amount. It is possible that under this formula, a few or some taxpayers would receive refunds rather than invoices, though most taxpayers in that situation would be those with incomes too low to have taken advantage of the tax breaks dished out to the ultrarich. Too computationally complicated? Not with modern digital technology.

If nothing is done, and people can debate what should be done, but if nothing is done, the exponential increase in the percentage of the economy owned and operated by the super-ultra-rich will continue and accelerate, the number of people sliding into poverty will increase, the disappearance of the middle class will get worse, and the realization that oligarchic capitalism is simply another version of feudalism and serfdom will come too late. So long as there are enough people willing to defend, and vote for, oligarchic capitalists and their operatives, the slide from “greatness” also will accelerate. What is most troubling is how so many people unhappy with the slide from “greatness” vote for the persons and policies that fuel that slide.