Robin Hood in reverse: US billionaires paid lower tax rates than working class in 2018 in latest blow to capitalism

American billionaires have never had it so good – they’re actually paying a lower tax rate than the working class, according to two economists exposing the real beneficiaries of a system that has redistributed wealth to the top.

The 400 wealthiest families in the US paid a lower effective tax rate than working class families for the first time last year, economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman of the University of California at Berkeley have claimed in their forthcoming book ‘The Triumph of Injustice’.

Billionaires, they say, were taxed at 23 percent, while working class families were taxed at 24.2 percent. Their calculations take into account state, local, and federal taxes, corporate taxes, and what the pair call “indirect taxes,” encompassing licenses and other fees paid to government.

While American income inequality was already considered to be at peak levels, Saez and Zucman cite the 2017 tax cuts that primarily benefited the rich and Big Business as the “tipping point” that has made the degree of inequality impossible to ignore – or allow to continue.

[link to www.rt.com (secure)]

That doesn't seem fair. It's not like they would notice paying and an extra couple of percent.