[I]n 1997... Congress passed what its sponsors promoted as a tax cut for the middle class... Buried in that… — David Cay Johnston
[I]n 1997... Congress passed what its sponsors promoted as a tax cut for the middle class... Buried in that law were many tax breaks for the rich... notably a sharp reduction... on long term capital gains, the source of two thirds of the incomes of the top 400. ...For years the IRS found big tax evaders by looking into people whose reported income did not seem sufficient to support their lifestyle... But the 1997 law stopped such inquiries. ...Lee Shepherd ...said the law "should be called the mobsters and drug dealers tax relief act of 1997." ...1997 cuts for the rich were not enough ...Under ...President Bush in 2001 ...their income going to taxes would slip further ...
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Members of Congress routinely vote on tax bills that they have never read, much less understood even on a superficial level. Sanford J. Schlesinger... says that "there hasn't been a member of Congress with a comprehensive understanding of the laws since ..."
[L]ess than a century after its adoption, the tax system is being turned on its head. Since at least 1983 it has become the explicit, but unstated, policy... to let the richest Americans pay a smaller portion of their incomes in taxes and to defer more of their taxes... a stealth tax cut, while collecting more in taxes from... the middle class.
In every place where there is no real tax system, such as Honduras or Afghanistan, there is no widespread wealth.
