Maybe Biden should pay his fair share of taxes before he lectures others

Joe Biden can't help himself.  It seems that every day, he's tweeting about making "the rich" pay their "fair share" of taxes.  He's trying to lecture us to feel jealous of others' success and shill his monster spendathon plan worth at least $3.5 trillion.  And he's trying to expand the budget and reach of the IRS to go after the little guy — the one who makes $600 deposits.  But this kind of talk coming from him, and his billionaire allies, reeks of hypocrisy.

Joe and Jill Biden set up a Subchapter S corporation so they could shield a substantial amount of Joe's income from his worthless speeches from Medicare taxes.

Biden has been corrupt and greedy throughout his career, with a substantial amount of wealth and income coming from huge foreign kickbacks to Hunter and his brother.  He's "the big guy" according to Hunter's emails, who always gets "ten percent."  Here's what he did on the tax front alone to avoid paying taxes:

Does Joe Biden owe up to $500,000 in back taxes? Republicans say non-partisan report indicates the president improperly avoided paying Medicare taxes before he took office

·  The report, done by the Congressional Research Service, proves the possibility that Biden owes the IRS as much as $500,000 in back taxes

·  The Bidens improperly used their two 'S corporations' to avoid paying Medicare tax on speaking fees and book sales in 2017 and 2018

·  They routed more than $13million through S corporations and counted less than $800,000 of it as salary eligible for Medicare tax, the Wall Street Journal said

·  They exempted the rest of their income from what would have been a rate of 3.8 percent

The New York Times, the Washington Post, and other media outlets did endless reports on Trump and his finances, but most are silent about the Biden corruption, which includes his taxes.

It is disgusting that Biden would demand that others pay more taxes to help pay for expansion and other entitlements while he intentionally made sure he paid $500,000 less for Medicare taxes.

It is even more disgusting that journalists, who are supposed to hold the powerful to account, intentionally hide the truth about corrupt politicians they are campaigning for, such as Biden and the Clintons, while continually lying, as with Russian collusion, about people they oppose.

Why should anyone trust supposed journalists who are so intentionally dishonest?

The hypocrisy is all over from those who call for higher taxes.  It's not just Biden, but the Democrat party's many billionaire allies.

Remember billionaire Warren Buffett?  He supports candidates who want higher tax rates and complains that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.  If he meant that, he would have his main investment company, Berkshire Hathaway, pay a dividend to its shareholders, but it never has.

There is an existing tax, called the accumulated earnings tax, which is meant to prevent big companies from accumulating too much cash.  It is supposed to be used by the IRS to force companies to pay a dividend, have a use for the money, or pay a 20% tax to the government.

What Is an Accumulated Earnings Tax?

·  An accumulated earnings tax is a tax on retained earnings that are considered unreasonable, which should be paid out as dividends.

·  The government taxes accumulated earnings so as to prevent corporations from not paying dividends to its shareholders.

·  Dividends are taxed higher than capital gains so it is financially beneficial for shareholders to avoid paying taxes on dividends.

·  The accumulated earnings tax rate is 20%.

The current qualified dividend rate can be as high as 23.8 percent plus state taxes.  Dividends are also not deductible to the corporation, so they pay 21% plus state taxes.  Essentially, dividends are double-taxed, with total rates higher than 50%.

Here is the amount of cash six large companies had on hand at the end of 2020 and their dividend rates:

Berkshire Hathaway; $138 billion, Dividend Zero

Apple: $196 Billion; Dividend 0.6%

Amazon: $84 Billion; Dividend Zero

Microsoft: $137 Billion; Dividend 0.83%

Google: $137 Billion; Dividend Zero

Facebook: $62 Billion; Dividend Zero

As for Buffett, he's hoarding: "Warren Buffett still hesitant about stocks as Berkshire hoards cash again."

Another purpose of the law is to prevent companies from becoming too powerful so they can devour or quash their competition.  Democrats should be for that.  I know I am.

The IRS could collect hundreds of billions if it just enforced this existing law, and it wouldn't need a bigger budget to do it.

My guess is that if these companies donated to Tea Party–supporters instead of Democrats, they would be targeted.

The CEOs and billionaires seem to be protected from hassle as long as they donate to Democrats and support their agenda, including pretending they support higher taxes.  They can buy mansions, own yachts, and fly in private jets as long as they pretend to care about their carbon footprint.

The hypocrisy continues and continues.

Bill Gates always pretends he wants to pay more taxes, but Microsoft and other big companies pretend their income comes from countries where it doesn't.  Look at how they do it.

Google shifted $23 billion to tax haven Bermuda in 2017: filing

Google moved 19.9 billion euros ($22.7 billion) through a Dutch shell company to Bermuda in 2017, as part of an arrangement that allows it to reduce its foreign tax bill, according to documents filed at the Dutch Chamber of Commerce.

Microsoft's Irish subsidiary posted a £220B profit in a single year.

Microsoft Round Island One has no employees except directors

An Irish subsidiary of Microsoft recorded a profit of $315bn (£222bn) last year.

The profit generated by Microsoft Round Island One is equal to nearly three-quarters of Ireland's gross domestic product — even though the company has no employees.

The subsidiary, which is resident for tax purposes in Bermuda and collects licence fees for the use of copyrighted Microsoft software around the world, recorded an annual profit of $314.7bn in the year to the end of June 2020, according to accounts filed at the Irish Companies Registration Office.

There is no legitimate reason for Microsoft, Google, and others to divert their income to other countries, but it massively inflates their earnings, stock price, and wealth.

The IRS would not need a bigger budget to go after the big companies that manipulate their earnings.  They could just closely follow this accounting maneuver.  Forcing these companies to pay more in taxes as the law allows would raise huge amounts of money.

Why don't House speaker Nancy Pelosi and her sidekick, Rep. Adam Schiff, go after these big companies and billionaires instead of conducting endless witch hunts on a former president?

Gates, Zuckerberg, Buffett, and other billionaires also save huge amounts of money by donating inflated stock to charities at market value instead of cost.  This drastically lowers their federal and state taxes because they never have to pay capital gains taxes on the appreciation of the stock.

I have been a CPA for 44 years and have seen schemes for the individuals and companies I have worked for to divert income overseas, to pretend ordinary income was capital gains income, and to pretend income came from states where it didn't.  We turned them all down, even though we like paying lower taxes because they were essentially fraudulent schemes.

I have no problem with companies and individuals paying taxes according to the tax code.  I am appalled that companies and individuals manipulate the code improperly to save taxes — especially billionaires who tell others to pay higher rates.

Summary: The IRS does not need more money.  It should enforce existing laws to go after the big fish.  Congress should change charitable giving laws by only allowing deductions at lower cost or market.  These enforcement actions and one minor change would raise hundreds of billions.

We should not raise rates, especially since the lower rates have raised more money and cause greater economic growth.

Biden says a lot of stupid things, but one of the dumbest ever, which is a new Democrat talking point, is that his massive $5-trillion slush fund proposal is "free" for taxpayers because he pretends he will confiscate that much from the private sector.

Then he should pay the $500,000 in additional Medicare taxes he saved, because, according to him, that is free.

Jack Hellner is a certified public accountant.

Image: Pixabay, Pixabay License.

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