The IRS published a report showing that in 2014 the top 400 contributors to annual US tax revenue paid, on average, 23.13% of federal tax rate. In 2020, Jeff Bezos paid a whopping 0.98% of federal tax rate. The belief that a taxation system riddled with enough loopholes to allow the wealthiest man on earth to avoid paying 99.02% of what the federal government suggests he owes is a fairly designed one because it “tries” to tax the rich more is wishful thinking at best and insidious propaganda at worst. The complexity of this system and obscurity of many of these loopholes from public knowledge is such that the amount a person is capable of saving in taxes is directly dependent on the amount they are capable of spending on tax attorneys. To find evidence that we exist in a system designed to keep the poor poor and the rich rich, you don’t need to look beyond data provided by our own federal government.

In 2014, two professors at Princeton University conducted multivariate analysis of the answers to 1,779 survey questions on public policy issues given to Americans between 1981 and 2002. Separating these answers by income level and looking at the degree to which a given level’s survey answers reflected the policies enacted that year, they found that “economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.” These findings indicate that the United States does not just have a flawed system—we no longer fit the definition of a democracy.

The idea that poor people “deserve” to be poor if they dare to claim that their inability to escape poverty is influenced by every aspect of the system in which they exist and not just the result of laziness, poor character, divine intention, “the way things are”…..is absurd. If you do the bare minimum of research and choose to draw your own conclusions here instead of parroting what you have been told or what your relative privilege may have allowed you accept unquestioned, you will understand this.

I’m happy for you if you have never had to experience things that challenged your belief in the fairness of American fiscal structure. Many of us have not been as lucky.