{"id":90660,"date":"2021-03-23T17:29:13","date_gmt":"2021-03-23T17:29:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/radiofree.asia\/?guid=b1fda068daf480a2fe1e18791d155d08"},"modified":"2021-03-23T17:29:13","modified_gmt":"2021-03-23T17:29:13","slug":"1-percent-owes-billions-in-unpaid-taxes-irs-must-reclaim-it-for-infrastructure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/03\/23\/1-percent-owes-billions-in-unpaid-taxes-irs-must-reclaim-it-for-infrastructure\/","title":{"rendered":"1 Percent Owes Billions in Unpaid Taxes. IRS Must Reclaim It for Infrastructure."},"content":{"rendered":"\"A<\/a>

During the Trump administration, the running not-so-funny joke was that every week was \u201cInfrastructure Week.\u201d Periodically, like a clockwork designed by M.C. Escher, Trump or one of his flapdoodle minions would pop up and announce that a massive overhaul of the nation\u2019s crumbling roads, bridges, airports, subways and water systems was a mere \u201ctwo weeks\u201d away.<\/p>\n

Those mythical 14 days spent four years on repeat, \u201cTwo weeks<\/a>!\u201d — like the lady whose head explodes in Total Recall<\/em>. Mine exploded listening to that long-form nonsense more than once, and of course, it never came to pass. Trump & Co. slithered into the bottom pages of history after trying to light the city on fire like some orange-dyed British garrison from days of yore\u2026 and our national infrastructure continues to molder beneath an indifferent sun.<\/p>\n

Enter the Biden administration, and a renewed push<\/a> for massive and unprecedented infrastructure repair. Biden\u2019s people do not appear to be stuck in screw-around mode. The legislation they are discussing runs into the trillions, and covers a vast swath of areas that have never before been categorized as infrastructure — for one example, this would be a climate bill<\/a> as much as anything else. <\/p>\n

Predictably, Mitch McConnell and the disloyal GOP opposition in Congress are gearing up to fight this legislation to the knife, so the reconciliation process run by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders may once again prove to be the only viable route to passage. This fight will be hotter than the last, however, because of the red-flag word that always elicits a dynamic response from the Republican lizard brain: Taxes.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Biden campaigned on a sprawling infrastructure agenda,\u201d The New York Times<\/em> reported on March 3, \u201cwith trillions of dollars invested in transportation, water and sewer lines, and the scaffoldings of an energy sector that significantly reduces the United States\u2019 carbon emissions, funded by tax increases on multinational companies and high earners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cue Mitch<\/a>: \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s going to be any enthusiasm on our side for a tax increase,\u201d he told reporters last week, before going on to describe the still-nonexistent bill as a \u201cTrojan horse\u201d for new taxes.<\/p>\n

If this sounds drearily familiar, that\u2019s because you\u2019ve heard it all before. Republicans are always frantic about spending unless they are the ones doing the spending (see: the massive 2017 tax cut<\/a> for rich folks). The lines are being drawn for yet another bottomless gibberish festival from the right, designed only to impede if not destroy the progress promised by a full-fledged infrastructure bill with its eye on sustainability and the threat of climate disruption.<\/p>\n

Before we get lost in that bog, I have an idea. The papers were awash yesterday with reports that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has all but gotten out of the business<\/a> of taxing the wealthy, resulting in uncollected taxes<\/a> estimated to add up to $1.4 trillion over 10 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cA new analysis by IRS researchers and academics published Monday morning estimates that the richest 1 percent of U.S. households don’t report around 21 percent of their income,\u201d reports<\/a> Common Dreams<\/em>, \u201coften using complex tax avoidance strategies that allow them to outmaneuver the federal government’s increasingly rare audits of the wealthy.\u201d<\/p>\n