Last edited Sat Apr 10, 2021, 01:14 AM - Edit history (4)
I doubt anyone or any corp actually ever actually paid those rates. The whole point was to force investment rather than hoarding wealth. (An over simplification for sure, but in essence I think that was the idea.)
If nothing else, those with the money practice tax avoidance. They always have, and this is nothing new by a long shot. Everyone tries to do it to a degree when able. The question is, what were the common tax avoidance methods back in the day? It would be quite interesting to see what was actually paid in taxes by these individuals or corporations back then versus what their payments are today.
What schemes were in common practice to avoid paying taxes? The presumption to me is that they were forced to reinvest that money into things that actually benefited the economy, like their businesses, new factories, housing or whatever. The Rockefellers, Carnegies, etc., all got immensely wealthy how? They built things. And they were making their money during that time of high tax rates.
The current scheme seems to be being some kind of fund manager, buying and selling securities with no actual stake in doing anything positive to actually build the economy in general, or, being a rapacious corporate raider - tearing apart existing businesses and selling off the bits and pieces. Likely in many of the latter cases, many of the businesses might have been headed to failure anyway, but there are many successful businesses that have succumbed as well. How many examples have you ever seen of these predators actually building something new out of their destruction?
But no, we (collective we) just keep lowering their tax rates so they have no incentive to to do anything that might benefit the country at all. They keep promising the sky in new jobs and tax revenue, etc - but they always want "tax incentives" for their largesse. None of which usually ultimately happens. Other than themselves, the only beneficiaries, other than their descendants (note that the Repubs still have this thing to try and eliminate the estate tax), are banks in Switzerland or the Cayman Islands. Basically they are sucking every penny they can from the country with the country getting absolutely nothing in return - not even any type or minimal payback in taxes. (And the taxpayers, usually through their local governments, are readily more than happy to line up, many times with two or more municipalities pitted against each other, to beg for their attention, each ready to give them the best "deal", while proclaiming "Thank you, sir, may I have another?" And they get fleeced yet again. Will we eff'in ever learn???)
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