By Jake Johnson/Common Dreams
What’s one similarity between the economic policy agendas of Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump? All three made the Walton family – the wealthiest family in the world – even richer.
According to a new analysis by the union-led campaign Making Change at Walmart, the combination of Bush’s 2003 tax cuts for the rich, Obama’s extension of those tax cuts, and Trump’s passage of a $1.5 trillion giveaway to the wealthy last year has netted the owners of Walmart $1.1 million per day in dividend income tax savings for the past 16 years.
“It should anger working and middle-class Americans of all political backgrounds that they pay taxes while the Walton family reaps the rewards of a $6 billion dollar tax break,” Amy Ritter, communications director for MCAW, said in a statement.
“It is time Americans know that the Walton family, the wealthiest family in the world, is being subsidized even as Walmart workers live paycheck-to-paycheck with jobs that have few benefits,” Ritter said. “It is time for our political leaders to wake up to the reality that our broken tax system is helping the least deserving and hurting the most deserving.”
By its own admission, MCAW’s conclusion that the Walton family has raked in over a million bucks per day in tax savings for the past 16 years is conservative, and underestimates the overall tax windfall the Waltons have received during the three most recent administrations.
In a press release, MCAW – which is run by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union – pointed out that its analysis only examined “the Walton family ownership of Walmart stock through two entities – Walton Enterprises LP/LLC and the Walton Family Holdings Trust. The savings for individual family members, who own millions of additional Walmart shares on which dividends are also paid, was not included in this analysis.”
Even so, the numbers are striking: While Walmart’s starting wage has risen just slightly over the past 16 years amid soaring grassroots pressure, MCAW estimates that the Walton family has raked in $6,510,847,623 in dividend income tax savings.
“The level of tax savings reflects not only a broken tax system that has been exploited by the Walton family, but shows the indifference the largest Walmart shareholders have to the economic plight facing tens of thousands of workers who depend on taxpayer-funded government assistance and programs,” MCAW concluded.
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Previously in tax scammage:
* McDonald’s Breaks Promise To Raise Wages.
* Last Year, Amazon Paid No Federal Income Taxes. Now, It’s Trying To Kill A Local Tax That Aims To Help the Homeless.
* Trump Vowed To Punish Companies That Moved Jobs Overseas. Is Congress Rewarding Them?
* After Long Career Bailing Out Big Banks, Obama Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner Now Runs Predatory Firm That Exploits The Poor For Profit.
* Jeff Bezos Just Became The Richest Person Ever. Amazon Workers Just Marked #PrimeDay With Strikes Against Low Pay And Brutal Conditions.
* A Sweet New Century For America’s Most Privileged.
* With Nation Transfixed By Kavanaugh Monstrosity, House GOP Votes To Give Rich Another $3 Trillion In Tax Cuts.
* Deepwater Horizon Settlement Comes With $5.35 Billion Tax Windfall.
* Offshoring By 29 Companies Costs Illinois $1.2 Billion Annually.
* Government Agencies Allow Corporations To Write Off Billions In Federal Settlements.
* The Gang Of 62 Vs. The World.
* How The Maker Of TurboTax Fought Free, Simple Tax Filing.
* $1.4 Trillion: Oxfam Exposes The Great Offshore Tax Scam Of U.S. Companies.
* How Barclay’s Turned A $10 Billion Profit Into A Tax Loss.
* Wall Street Stock Loans Drain $1 Billion A Year From German Taxpayers.
* German Finance Minister Cries Foul Over Tax Avoidance Deals.
* Prosecutor Targets Commerzbank For Deals That Dodge German Taxes.
* A Schlupfloch Here, A Schlupfloch There. Now It’s Real Money.
* How Milwaukee Landlords Avoid Taxes.
* Study: 32 Illinois Fortune 500 Companies Holding At Least $147 Billion Offshore.
* Watch Out For The Coming Tax Break Trickery.
* When A ‘Tax Bonanza’ Is Actually A Huge Corporate Tax Break.
* The Hypocrisy Of Corporate Welfare: It’s Bigger Than Trump.
* Oxfam Names World’s Worst Tax Havens Fueling ‘Global Race To Bottom.’
* Offshore Tax Havens Cost Average Illinois Small Business $5,789 A Year.
* State Tax Incentives To Corporations Don’t Work.
* GOP Tax Plan Would Give 15 Of America’s Largest Corporations A $236 Billion Tax Cut.
* Triumph Of The Oligarchs.
* Amazon Short-List Proves Something “Deeply Wrong” With America’s Race-To-The-Bottom Economy.
* Apple’s $38 Billion Tax Payment Less Than Half Of $79 Billion They Owe.
* U.S. Surpasses Cayman Islands To Become Second-Largest Tax Haven On Earth.
* Less Than Year After GOP Tax Scam, Six Biggest Banks Already Raked In $9 Billion In Extra Profits.
* After Budget Cuts, The IRS’s Work Against Tax Cheats Is Facing “Collapse.”
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Previously in The Paradise Papers:
* ‘Paradise Papers’ Reveal Tax Avoidance, Shady Dealings Of World’s Rich And Powerful.
* Just How Much Money Is Held Offshore? Hint: A SHIT-TON.
* Development Dreams Lost In The Offshore World.
* Keeping Offshore ‘Hush Hush,’ But Why?
* Tax Havens Are Alive With The Sound Of Music.
* Today In Tax Avoidance Of The Ultra-Wealthy.
* Go To Town With This Offshore Leaks Database.
* The Paradise Papers: The View From Africa And Asia.
* The Paradise Papers: The End Of Elusion For PokerStars.
* The Paradise Papers: An Odd Call From The Bermuda Government.
* The Paradise Papers: Nevis Is An Offshore Haven Of Opportunity
* The Paradise Papers: The Long Twilight Struggle Against Offshore Secrecy.
* The Paradise Papers: A Fair Tax System Will Be Lost Without Public Pressure.
* Item: Today In The Paradise Papers: Through Death Threats And Scare Tactics, Honduran Reporter ‘Perseveres.’
* The Paradise Papers: Journalists Flee Venezuela To Publish Investigation.
* Last Stop: Chicago.
* The Paradise Papers: ‘Africa’s Satellite’ Avoided Millions Using A Very African Tax Scheme.
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Previously in The Panama Papers:
* The Panama Papers: Remarkable Global Media Collaboration Cracks Walls Of Offshore Tax Haven Secrecy.
* The Panama Papers: Prosecutors Open Probes.
* The [Monday] Papers.
* Adventures In Tax Avoidance.
* Mossack Fonseca’s Oligarchs, Dictators And Corrupt White-Collar Businessmen.
* Jonathan Pie, TV Reporter! They’re All In It Together.
* Meet The Panama Papers Editor Who Handled 376 Reporters In 80 Countries.
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Previously in carried interest, aka The Billionaire’s Loophole:
* Patriotic Millionaires Vs. Carried Interest.
* The Somewhat Surreal Politics Of A Private Equity Tax Loophole Costing Us Billions (That Obama Refused To Close Despite Pledging To Do So).
* Fact-Checking Trump & Clinton On The Billionaire’s Tax Break.
* Despite Trump Campaign Promise, Billionaires’ Tax Loophole Survives Again.
* Carried Interest Reform Is a Sham.
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Comments welcome.
Posted on October 26, 2018