How Our Kiss Up/Kick Down Tax Policy Could Be Fairer

Obama takes steps against too-big-to-fail banks. From VOX.

The Wall Street Journal thinks this is a bad idea, so it must be good for most people. Why not create a safer harbor for retirement savings than the predator filled waters of the financial sector, where the safest waters are reserved for the wealthy.

The new fiduciary rule means financial advisors would once again be obligated to you rather than obligated to the financial giants who’d like to use the masses of lower income retirees like a cash machine. From SLATE.

Pulitzer Prize financial reporter David Cay Johnston discusses a few of the sneakier dodges available to the 1%.

Did you realize that the helpful folks who devise the simple, easy to use tax software are not really helpful at all but predatory?

Which is why they oppose any new policy that would make tax filing easier for everyone.

VOX reports on Elizabeth Warren's good idea.

Propublica reports how the Turbotax people lobbied Congress to keep our tax code more complicated. Complicated tax laws make them very very rich.

Maybe the worst policy in recent years is the one that makes college loan debt unforgivable. I mean, even the worst felons are paroled eventually, but college loans persist after the death of the college student who incurred them. College debt interest ought to be tax deductible like mortgage interest. You incurred the debt to open up a better career, why isn’t it a business expense? Why in god’s name is it now suggested we make it a tax deduction for corporations to pay off your debt for you, when your paying it off wasn’t deductible? Reported at SLATE.

From the PARIS REVIEW, some history on the crime of indebtedness.

The unfairness of our Kiss Up Kick Down economy is finally sinking in. People are angry and understand what they are angry about. Before we’ll see a fundamental shift we need a critical mass of understanding, a consensus that the system is screwed up and isn’t working. It’s not just unfair, it is dysfunctional. From NEW YORK MAGAZINE.

The 1% are hoarders. While we work long hours they rake in millions they haven’t earned without lifting a finger, and they hide it where it can’t be taxed for schools and bridges and water systems. Reported by EVONOMICS.

Even Goldman Sachs may be realizing the current system is not working. Reported by BLOOMBERG.

One thing has to change: we need to quit putting the rich above the law. I’ve seen this expressed in another nicely cynical way: “I’ll believe corporations are people when they hang one in Texas." Reported by PROMARKET.

This kind of corruption has happened before. Bill Moyers revisits the corruption of a few decades ago.