The Wealthy Must Pay Their Fair Share

The Associated Press reported the week of August 16 the United States and the Swiss government announced a court settlement the previous week in efforts by the IRS to force Zurich based bank UBS AG  to turn in the names of about 52,000 Americans thought to be hiding nearly $15 billion in assets in secret accounts.  The settlement has a lot of wealthy Americans with offshore accounts nervously running to their tax advisors and the IRS.

 

I have not found where this story has been given due coverage by the national media, the cable networks or the various blogs.  Perhaps the wealthy who own most of the major networks would not like the American people to dwell on the facts that wealthy people have the means to hide assets and avoid taxation.  This is just another piece of evidence that the wealthy do not pay their fair share of taxes.

 

The AP also reported that Richard Boggs, chief executive of Nationwide Tax Relief, a tax firm that specializes in clients with tax debts exceeding $100,000 said you have the super rich who are not used to being pushed around, finding themselves in unfamiliar territory and are very frightened.  Boggs said his firm has been taking in 100 new cases a month, a big increase over previous years.

 

If $15 billion in assets is indeed hiding in secret accounts that have not been taxed, coupled with the tax loopholes that favor the wealthy, the total billions of dollars that escape taxation for this group of peoples must be staggering.  Does it come to $50, $150 or $200 billion?  Congress needs to take away these avenues of escape, go through the tax code and eliminate all loopholes they themselves created for the special interest groups so that taxation will be fair with a capitol F for the well being of all taxpayers.  The people and the economy would both benefit from that action.

 

IRS commissioner Doug Shulman said 400 people applied to voluntarily disclose undeclared assets in a single week in July, compared with fewer that 100 applications all last year.  He also said if people have been hiding assets in the past, they should be nervous, and they should be a lot more suspect about doing it in the future. 

 

Once again we are witnessing our government getting involved in the necessary checks and balances, something that never happened in the previous administration that resulted in the collapse of the economy and the financial industry.  The government in this case should stay the course.