The former president’s hoarding of classified documents is the least complicated of his scandals—and it’s also proving the hardest to dodge. If that were not enough, there is the Al Capone-like tax evasion.
The state can follow the example of Abraham Lincoln and finally establish a progressive state income tax.
A radical idea is gaining adherents on the left. It’s the perfect way to blunt tech-driven inequality.
Between 1930 and 1980, the rate applied on the highest incomes was on average 81 percent, and the rate applied to the highest inherited estates was 74 percent. Clearly this did not destroy American capitalism.
The massive leak of documents known as the Panama Papers illustrates how Donald J. Trump and others seek to profit off his very name alone. The Trump name shows up on 3,540 of the leaked documents, many shedding light on what has become a business model. Trump's name doesn't appear as an owner of offshore accounts; some of his associates and business partners are also in the files.
How is it that American corporations are paying a smaller share of federal income taxes when the rates paid by individuals dropped much further? It’s simple: ordinary American families don’t have teams of lobbyists to win them loopholes or armies of tax accountants and attorneys to exploit them.
Five lessons for progressives from our first century of income taxes.
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