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We all know that big corporations can unfairly fight off legal challenges from smaller entities by via the well-known phrase “dragging it through the courts”. Especially so in the US where there seem to be many, many layers – that end up at the Supreme Court. But to get there, from a lowly first court case can take a decade and millions spent by the little party.

So, consequently, most aggrievances against big corp are never heard. That of course is not fair.

So whenever a civil case between an entity worth over $x and another worth less than $x – we could start with above a billion versus below a million, they need to go to a special, new court designed just for that. It is nothing other that a shortcut to the Supreme Court, to save the torture of through the courts. But it can cover all the other tactics that the rich utilise that I am not aware of.

The rich would struggle to argue against such an efficient system.

The post A Court Just For Billionaires and Big Corp vs The Little Guy appeared first on Unism.

as of 2010, 388 individuals possessed as much household wealth as the lower half of the world’s population combined—about 3.5 billion people

This explainer is far easier to follow, and concludes that, according to the math… if you start with 1,000 people with $1000 each and play 10,000 rounds of coin-toss bets, where your stake is 20% of net your worth… someone ends up with everything ($96,274), even though everyone wins half of the coin-toss contests.

It is a mathematical model, not accounting for how society actually works. But it proves that having a bit more money than someone else at the start leads to exaggerated outcomes over time.

Long story short, if you have more in the beginning, you can gamble more and not be wiped out by bad bets as much as someone who starts out with less.

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Ten Ways Billionaires Avoid Taxes on an Epic Scale

It is a summary of 10 articles they published a year ago. Here is my summary of the summary!

1. They avoid income as that has the highest tax rate. Instead they sell stock (capital gains tax in the US is half that of the income of workers), and borrow against stock at record low interest rates. Ultra-high-worth people on average increase their wealth at 5% or more per year, so borrowing at 1% makes sense.
2. “Tech mogul Peter Thiel amassed a $5 billion Roth IRA, a type of account that shields income from taxes and is intended to help low- and middle-class savers prepare for retirement.”
3. Somehow twisting short-term trades into long-term investments for lower tax rates.
4. Buy a sports team – massive tax deductions (and you own a sports team)
5. Oil and gas industries, bizarrely, get major tax breaks
6. It is kinda obvious but you lose money racing horses. Tax deduction from the sport of kings!
7. Trump – voted in by desperately poor blue collar white males – gave the filthy rich massive tax cuts.
8. Tech billionaires, being tech smart, combine a lot of the above.
9. 18 billionaires, because they had one of their “no tax” years, received COVID stimulus checks.
10. Half of America’s richest people employ techniques that circumvent estate tax

I can add one to the above… A certain “billionaire” who sends out begging emails numerous times every day. He hasn’t announced a re-election run yet, so the money is his to use as he wishes.

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Before that massive tax break for the rich, CEOs of publicly traded companies on average received 42% of their compensation in the form of salary, and only 19% in stock options.

Fast-forward to today… to take advantage of the tax breaks, that mix is now 13% in salary, and 60% in stock options.

That is all we need to know, to understand that the changes benefited them. Them being people who were already plenty rich.

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“hedge fund managers, Wall Street lawyers, real estate tycoons like President Trump and big corporations grab nearly $200 billion by transforming old tax liabilities into fat refunds”

Amongst the ranks of real estate developers are of course Trump and his son-in-law Kushner.

In an emerging global crisis, Trump managed to look after himself, hoping nobody would notice. Quite likely it made his 4-year tenure massively more profitable that simply renting out his properties to aspects of the government.

Source:
https://americansfortaxfairness.org/issue/big-tax-loopholes-wealthy-snuck-cares-act-deserves-media-spotlight/

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TeamHealth and Envision Healthcare employed one third of all staff in American emergency rooms. They are both owned by massive private equity firms.

“…those rolled into emergency rooms on stretchers, were frequently bewildered by the particulars of their policies.

One of the key things that most patients did not grasp was that they could go to a hospital that was solidly part of their insurance network, operating on the reasonable assumption that they would receive care at the lowest rate, only to be treated by an emergency room doctor who was outside of the network, triggering often-exorbitant bills.”

This happen more than 20% of the time, and it happened massively more than in other emergency departments. Essentially these evil companies took advantage of situations where patients were helpless, and stole from them.

This is a great example of how the rich (the owners of KKR and Blackstone – the private equity companies involved) cheat and deprive the poor.

Thankfully this was outlawed in January 2022. But you must wonder about the moral character of all the people who purposely did this, to give billionaires more billions.

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