The United States presidential elections is just five weeks away as Donald Trump goes head-on with his Democrat challenger Joe Biden. Trump has been criticised for his handling of the coronavirus situation and has been falling way behind in opinion polls which can impact the elections.
The president is now reeling after a bolt-from-the-blue report showing how he avoided paying any income taxes for years. Trump has avoided releasing his tax returns and is the only president in modern history to not make them public, raising questions over his payments and business dealings.
According to the report, Trump paid no taxes in ten of the past 15 years and paid only $750 in 2016 when he stood for office. This is even far less than many middle-income Americans or even undocumented migrants. In fact, the self-professed businessman showed deliberate losses to avoid paying taxes.
Trump has broken any laws and has called himself ‘smart’ for avoiding paying taxes. He is not alone as laws have been made around the world which the elite and powerful corporations have used for their advantage to evade taxes.
Amazon is one of the largest companies in the world and its owner Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world. In 2018, the company posted $11 billion income but paid zero taxes. Amazon is not alone as many of the world’s billionaires benefited even during the pandemic and saw their wealth increased by $652 billion dollars while 40 million Americans filed for unemployment.
Wealth-friendly tax laws and loopholes have benefits billionaires and kept them at the top. These are then exploited by hard-nosed businessman like Trump. Despite hefty losses on his businesses, Trump took tax deduction on his residences, aircraft and continued to live his luxurious life.
These laws need to be revisited as it causes global inequality and leads to the illegal movement of resources from the developing world. While ordinary people continue to make ends meet, the super-rich continues to get away from legalized tax abuse, money laundering and corruption.
This is the reason why the top rich percent control the world’s 99 percent wealth. The massive inequalities are one of the biggest draws of the current capitalist system. Governments around the world need to take collective action to end these inequalities.
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