Thanks to The Huffington Post, I spent the first few minutes of April 15, tax day, reading a U.S. PIRG report that tax havens have cost up to $100 billion per year in lost tax revenue. Wait, wait…it gets worse. The Government Accountability Office found in 2008 that over 80 percent of the 100 biggest U.S. corporations took advantage of tax havens. So, you mean to tell me that while conservative biggots like Rush Limbaugh and the Minute Men are blaming Immigrants and the Obama Administration for the economic crisis, the overwhelming majority of top U.S. corporations were setting up P.O. boxes in places like the Cayman Islands and Switzerland to steal hundreds of billions of dollars from the U.S. every year?
Maybe the tea party protests should focus on addressing real issues instead of hosting rallies led by white supremacists funded by the Fox News empire complaining about a tax policy that simply returns the tax rate on the richest 5% of Americans to the rate that is less than it was…during the Reagan Administration.
And, maybe you and I can visit U.S. PIRG to support the Obama tax budget and/or participate in the Compact for Racial Justice phone forum on April 28
Note: I just want to make it clear that when we say “taxpayer,” that most certainly includes documented and undocumented Immigrants, who paid $50 billion dollars in taxes between 1996 and 2003. Given the increasing anti-immigrant and white supremacist sentiment in this country, it is important to consistently share the various ways that immigrants contribute economically to America.
