The Secret to Actually Taxing the Rich | Robert Reich

The richest 1 percent are evading $163 billion a year in taxes. Here’s how we stop them.

[galerus]

Problem being is that our Politicians are very wealthy individuals, so they will never agree to raise taxes or fund the IRS properly.

[angrypanda]

Perhaps the IRS should exclusively focus on those rich parasites and let all other audits and functions go by the wayside!

[ZilchBlackBeer]

Thank you for bringing this up. I am so damn tired of hearing about friends or relatives being audited when most of them make less than 100k. I would love to see these tax cheats finally pay what they owe.

[lauriegates]

I worked for IRS. The biggest joke that wasn't talked about is a great many government workers own taxes. The don't pay and they don't call and set up installment agreements either. But if you are a IRS employee you have to file on time and not own any money to the IRS. If you do you are required to tell your boss and fill out paperwork. As a peon there are more rules we need to follow or loose your job. Where our politicians can do what they please.

[anthonydelfino]

This is so frustrating... 10 years ago I started working freelance for the first time in my life. Just little side jobs, and was told I didn't need to declare 1099 forms, that they were for my own reference. I got audited for not declaring $5, 000 of income on 1099 forms that year, yet billionares don't get audited because they're understaffed? This is completely unfair. They'd have made more going after one billionare than the pittance I had to pay back from my $5, 000 undeclared.

[promethius]

They should pass a 500-1000% penalty/fine on any taxes knowingly evaded in the 50 million plus estates to make the gamble 'too rich for their blood'.

[one]

Some democracy we have, the rich minority actually run this country, through buying the politicians that we elect to represent our interests.

[DrJohnnyJ]

There are so many fun things that we used to do. Scaled property taxes: estates over a certain value pay a higher percent. Excise/luxury taxes: if you can pay $10 million for a painting you can pay $10 million more to fund new artists. If you can spend $200K for a car, you can pay $200K in taxes on it. The list goes on. Inheritance tax. Can't get it while they live, take it when they die. The Walmart ungrateful kids (moved to Wyoming to cheat Arkansas) have about $200 billion. Let's make sure that it goes to their homeless employees. What happened to gift taxes? Oh, the 60's were so much fun for poor people.

The other gret thing was that the rich accepted it. J.P. Getty said of the corporate income tax, (more or less). "What are you complaining about? You only pay taxes on profits". He also felt that workers were entitled live decently, have homes and raise families. He worked as a driller so he knew that these guys worked hard. I wish that Bezos would work a few shifts in one of his warehouses.

[mjnyc]

Not only would such a measure increase tax revenue, it would also enhance activity of tax lawyers. Their increased income thereby would also enhance tax revenue.

[cynthiahofer]

I learned a lot with this video. Maybe we should make the rich pay for their own audit.

[geekworthy]

The real issue with our government is that representatives used to represent like 25, 000 people. Now they represent millions. How does one representative represent the needs of so many people? Makes it easier to buy them off when there are fewer of them!

[oldsesalt]

It seems like you could marshal all the IRS's manpower and concentrate on the top 0.1% and get far more return than concentrating on the bottom 75%.

[hourglass]

Just last year my wife and I were audited for a fraudulent child credit we claimed. Our child is 4 this year, the previous 3 years we had no problem. Worse yet is we couldn't even dispute it because it was impossible to call anyone. We went through the automated system but never got a response. Calling, I wish I was exaggerating, 3 times a day every weekday for 3 months we never even managed to get put on hold the lines were too busy. So here we were as a household of 38k a year losing out on a measley less then 1k tax credit we were owed. Meanwhile people like Trump actively brag openly about tax evasion and nothing comes of it? It's sickening.

[robertdahse]

The middle and lower middle class have been footing the bill for my whole life, don't expect anything to change in the near future

[janicewallace]

Sabotaging any system takes time and money, ironically. Becoming an oligarchy is painful. Not for those with money, of course.

[hitreset]

Hi Robert.
Perhaps instead of saying "we need to tax the rich". Yes duh, but how about we flipped things around here? Instead we work to get a law passed that prevents rich people (and their corporations) from lobbying politicians unless they can provide evidence of having paid the average taxpayer percentage in taxes. If they can't or don't then it is illegal for these same rich people (and their corporations) to lobby politicians.

[TJonLongIsland]

An Executive Order that sets forth a policy whereby every person in the top 1% is audited every year.

[smalin]

How about following Texas's lead, and allow private citizens to collect bounties by reporting people who are cheating on taxes?

[pattirockgarden]

"It's absurd!" So true. Democracy is dying, no "for the people" anymore.

[cindyvan]

Even if the IRS is correctly funded, they need to have the people who have knowledge of how to look for loopholes & how to catch them in tax evasion. Then to hold them to accountability. Without consequences for their actions they will continue to look for loopholes & worm their way out of paying taxes. There was a class in college when studying for accounting on how to cheat on your taxes so that you know what to look for as an auditor.