Hours before Republicans are expected to release the final version of their tax bill, a new video illustrates how the plan “is a perfect demonstration of how the wealthy use their power to bend the rules in their favor.”
The video, released by NowThis, features Eric Schoenberg, a millionaire who—unlike President Donald Trump—has released his tax returns, and uses them to give a crystal-clear look at how the proposal will benefit the super rich like himself and the president.
Watch the full video below:
Schoenberg, a member of the Patriotic Millionaires, a wealthy group that advocates for policies that would foster greater equality, says that “the Republican plan will make the rich richer and leave everybody else to pick up the bill” and goes on to show exactly how.
He does this by showing parts of his 2015 tax return, a year for which he and his wife had an adjusted gross income of $1.3 million on which they paid $325,000 in income tax—just under 25 percent.
Yes, this rate is low, Schoenberg says, because the system is already set up “in favor of rich people by taxing investment income at lower rates than labor income.” For low- and middle-income taxpayers, that labor income—in other words wages and salaries—is the bulk of their income. Yet that line on the return for Schoenberg and his wife shows around $35,000—a small fraction of their overall income.
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