A big warm welcome to the here. Sswoman for being we will start with a 30minute overview of the federal tax code and then we will hear from the congresswoman. We will have a discussion. If you want to learn more about what we are doing, please visit erich. Com. Ch taxth and there you will find the tax code and easy to understand language. Unlike other universities we could mention, ours is free and useful. Morris, you are on mute. Sorry. Im a computer engineer by training. I have spent the last 10 years i have worked exposure. Ing risk one day at the top floor of a Bank Building in athens, i walked over by the window. I did not want everyone to see i was having a second a second chocolate pudding from the bath a dutch from the buffet. I looked behind me at the bankers of the table and i saw a protest and a riot. I wondered how we were helping anybody. A few months later i left threeyour career on wall street. Hello, everyone. My name is chuck connors. My great grandpa higher my great grandpa emigrated from germany. He used to say to bring home the bacon has a different meaning in our family. A fortune and gave it away. Why did i do that . I did not think it would be good to have a society where people had fortunes and others have nothing. Books,written a few including one with bill gates senior. I am really pleased to be here. Hello, everyone. Chuck talk ihear dont know whether to shake him or how can. I worked with other people for the first 20 years of my career. Myut the startup costs on credit card. Townld me that everyone in knew i was bankrupt. Later i got really lucky. And now we are in every mom and pop restaurant throughout the country. That ceos are four times more likely to be sociopaths them the general population. Rich people are generally just greedy pastors. I should know. Greedy bastards. Even the ones who inherited their money are convinced somehow they earned it. And they will keep every last dime of it. Every day millions of countries every day, millions of people go to work and every day they are getting screwed by the richest people in america. Patriotic millionaires first president her when obama and republicans in the senate were negotiating a deal to extend the bush tax cuts. It absolutely infuriated me, so i called a few millionaires and they got together and wrote a letter that basically said for the good of the country raise my taxes and that message was so shocking it blew up in the media. We have been working ever since to raise taxes. To be clear we are not a partisan group and taxes are not a partisan issue. Andmajority of democrats republicans and independents believe that billionaire should pay higher taxes. Areonly want to disagree the ones running the government. Could it have anything to do with the Campaign Contributions that millionaires and billionaires make to politicians . I dont know. The marginal tax rate for the incomes and world war ii was 94 . In the 1950s it was 91 . Rate is 21 . Ional the tax rate for the richest people in the country has gone one direction, down. Most tax negotiations take place behind closed doors. 2016 when the Republican Party took over the white house, the senate, and the house of representatives. They had so much power they did not have to compromise. In 2017 use that power to rewrite the tax code. Every single democrat voted code. T the new tax almost every republican voted for it. This was lucky because it gave us clarity on how one side of the isle thinks that the tax code should be structured. Be clear, some of that republicans have decided to take full responsibility. You may like some of it or hate all of it. That is for you to decide. Of who is in charge, americans deserve a fair tax code and we dont have one today. Last year, billionaires paid a lower tax rate than every other group in the country. How does that happen . Lets compare a regular person starts taxes to leverage us in to a rich persons taxes. Morris, youre still muted. Lets say to people worked fulltime. Together they made 100,000, just a of average. They are married and they will file taxes jointed. They will end up with 75,200 in taxable income. Chartsare going to see of the federal tax bracket that shows how much you pay at each level of income. Everyone gets the standard deduction, basically the amount the government says, you need that. You keep that. Progressive a federal income tax. After the standard eduction a married couple filing jointly will pay 12 until they maxed rates. The 37 everyone pays the same rate through the tax bracket. Out at 37 ,es wereer they make 622,000 millions. And inwith 75 house income, they have 10 of the first chunk for a total tax bill of 6,800. Youhen, your muted are muted. Sorry. We have two other things. Year. It around all one day ronald clicks a button and sells stock. Take the standard deduction and be left with 75,000. They made the same amount of so you would think that they would pay the same amount, wrong. They worked hard every year slumps sat on the beach sipping strawberry daiquiris. There end of the year 9,000 poorer and why . Republicanthe youakers believe that should be taxed differently you made yourow money. Most of the people on this call make ordinary income. You work. You make money, you get a paycheck and taxes come out of that paycheck. Other people make Capital Gains income. Stocky an asset like a and that is considered Capital Gains. As you can see Capital Gains ratee is taxed at a higher than ordinary income. They sold evenat more stock. They take the standard deduction and then they will pay zero tax on the first 80,000 and 15 for the rest of their taxable income for a total tax bill of around 40,000. They will take these standard eduction and pay Social Security and medicare. At the end of the year the total bill is around 82,000. Again, to families make the same amount of money and the cocktail sipping e traders will have 38,000 more than the working folks. If you work for a living you pay higher taxes, but thats not the best deal in the new federal tax code. The best deal is to inherit money like me. Erkhardtssay that the w got jobs again. Americans things theyve been 11 million. They pay Social Security, medicare, took the standard deduction and and up with just under 11 million. They maxed it out and the total tax bill for the year is about 4 million. Ising 11 million the year hardly a reason to say crimea river, but how those there tax bill compare . His great aunt died and left their entire fortune. Do not worry, they were not close. So how much will the slumps a on their own 11 million inheritance . Nothing. Taxesill not pay any because when republican lawmakers rewrote the tax code they exempted the first 11 million from every assay and 22 million for a couple. Once again, its the exact same earnt of pretax, but they their money in different ways. One couple by working and the other by waiting for someone to die. They end up 4 million richer. Away from have broken england several hundred years ago because we wanted to be a deep diveut take in our tax code and you will hear god save the king god save the queen playing. They clearly prefer an aristocracy. For 1oof . You buy taxes million. What if you bought the stock for 1 million, its worth 10 before yout the day sell it, when your heirs beingted, instead of it 1 million, the base is stepped up to 10 million. When your heirs sell the stock, they will only pay above the 10 million value. Lets talk about another rich persons gimmick. It benefits a certain wellknown Real Estate Developer. The new tax code allows investors to avoid Capital Gains when they sell a piece of property if they immediately invest in another property. Once a developer buys a building worth 3 million, holds it for 20 years. He will roll that into a new to Million Dollar building. High by 1 million and he will end up with these buildings were 60 million and still pays the taxes. When these loopholes Work Together they can acquire millions of dollars of property without paying a cent in taxes. Lets look at the same situation. The Real Estate Developer will hold onto these properties until they are worth 200 million. The state will pay some estate tax. If they sell it before it gains more value they will pay no taxes. Lets stop and think about that. On one side we have a wealthy heir who has never worked, who inherited hundreds of millions of dollars of operating and contributed nothing. Nothing to build our roads. Nothing to keep our water clean. On the other side we have those who go to work and do their part for the country every single day. Many of the richest people in america are not rich because they did something to earn it. They are rich because their parents did something to earn it. Theres nothing wrong with inheriting money, but there is no good reason that that system should be taxed differently. Lets turn to corporations. 2018 if you bought toothpicks from amazon you would pay more for your delivery. If you filled up your car once you paid more than chevron paid in federal taxes. How does this happen. How does this happen . There are a lot of ways. The main ones are the new. Ederal tax code lets say a company like starbucks. Lets eight starbucks has thousands of stores in the u. S. You would expect them to pay lots of taxes in the u. S. That would make sense. Thats not the way it works. Unlike land or buildings, intellectual property can be transferred to another country as quickly as you can click send on an email. Logo. Ill legally own the then starbucks will have to send that. They can make the world pay whatever they want. Using this and other tricks, 91 fortune 500 companies paid zero tax in 2018. Werkha we are with the their end of the bargain and corporations shirking responsibility. Bigompanies can also get a tax cut for all of the equipment that they own and other countries. No wonder we are losing so Many American jobs. Lovech people and ceos pretending that there is a reason that they do not pay taxes. Creators. Ob im a business guy. Im not a job creator. Ure we Start Companies we hire employees. People will have jobs making gift cards even if id i. They will come along and fulfill the demand. Ceohere were a lot of austrias pushing for a lower Corporate Tax rate. At t was one of the biggest cheerleaders for Corporate Tax cuts. Corporations that would hire more people if they were not burdened with higher taxes. Withts are calculated payroll. So this claim does not make sense on its face. Washat as it may, maybe he confused. I dont know. Dont think so from 2008 until 2015 at t had an effective Corporate Tax rate of around 8 . It was significantly low the standard rate of 35 . During this time, the company cut 80,000 jobs and with their low taxes and savings they bought back about 34 billion dollars worth of Company Stock increasing the net worth of the executives like stephen said. Went intonew tax cut effect, they have cut additional they paid 32year million. For those of you who are unfamiliar with stock ipaqs, that is when a company uses profits to buy its own stock, making the remaining stock more valuable. Create jobs, but it makes those who are aid in Stock Options lots of money. Ceos said they would use the tax code to hire more people. Instead they bought back stock. A year after the rewrite of the they reacheduts, an alltime high of over a trillion dollars. Billionairen owners like stephen do not create jobs. Stock buybacks do not create jobs. What about regular investors . We pay half the tax rate of people who work for a living. Lawmakers justify that by saying investors are job creators and insisting it their taxes are raised they will not address. Are they are they job creators . No. Apple employs thousands to make iphones. Im an investor. Ive hundreds of thousands of dollars in apple stock. People at apple have jobs because of the people who want to buy iphones not investors like me. None of the money i spent on apple stock went to apple. It went to other investors. To be clear, investors are not going anywhere regardless of the tax rate. The alternative to investing is sticking your money in a mattress. Any logical person would rather make something and pay taxes on it as opposed to nothing and not make any money. Lets put those investors aside and look at private equity. Private equity means actively investing in private companies. Therehe people who work managing the fund who have none of their own capital at stake have a special tax rate. Are they job creators, morris . Not even close. Over toysuity took r us. They love to say they saved the company. Did they . Had r us at its peak 97,000 employees. They were in good financial shape. By the time they were done with equitypany, the private job creators had shut down all 735 u. S. Stores, loaded is a once positive Balance Sheet with a billion dollars in debt. The investors made 100 74 Million Dollars, but destroyed a Viable Company and cost over 100,000 people their jobs and they paid half the tax rate on that money is people who work for a living. Code gives antax advantage to people who already have money or inherit money over people who work for a living, and as you get richer and richer there are even more ways to get out of paying your fair share. Is that about right . Yes. And the result is our country is more unequal than it has been in top 1 ownst the 40 of the country. The bottom half has seen no wealth growth that all. It is like some sick game of economic jango where we keep taking money from people at the bottom and giving it to people at the top and its destabilizing our country. People are taking to the streets. Our citizens cant take anymore. They are a sing a few ridiculously rich people get everything while millions are being treated like second or third class citizens. So even if you have the same income, you and every year worse off. In america today, death is from alcohol, suicide, drugs at the highest level ever. For the first time in our countrys history longevity is going down for segments of the population. With covid, things are getting worse. Businesses are going under. If you look at the stock market you would never know how bad things are. Over 200,000 people died. Our u. S. Billionaires made almost a trillion dollars in well. None of this just happened. Codemanipulated the tax and got outcomes that were fabulous for them and add for everybody else. Aese people want to live in country with a tiny number of extremely wealthy people, millions of poor people, and no middleclass. I dont understand why they want that, but you cant escape the result of their ideology. Attentione is paying we can have the tax code we want. If you want to know more, please visit taxtherich. Com. Thank you. We are so excited to speak with the congresswoman. You. s so good to be with i just got the tail end of the conversation, but i see real stars and champions. We have a lot of questions from the audience. The republicans are responsible. How are we going to fix this . Let me have a few opening comments. Policy details are so real and they have disastrous, life altering implications for far too many workers and families. As many of you have noted, the staggering income inequality we have today is where more than goesf new Wealth Creation 1 . He top thats not an accident. As you just finished saying, it is the result of deliberate policy. With regulatory schemes and tax loopholes. Like amazonhtens facebook a very recent Rand Corporation study found that 2. 5 million 2. 5 trillion has been redistributed from the bottom 90 to the wealthiest 1 each year. Thats 50 trillion in wealth transfer. Let that sink in. The situation we are in now, more than 27 million have lost their health care because of a very cruel system. Small businesses have shuttered to be a blackpen small business, you had a one in 10 chance of getting a ppp loan. And yet, i think i heard my friend chuck save this, the wealthiest billionaires are reaching a record high. We have to understand that trump is a system and a cause of economic inequality. Congresse fighting in to address some of the structural pieces that are with covid relief. Congress provided as part of the original stimulus surege is about making people can put food on their table and yet the republicans want to keep tax cuts that were and they wantct to take away those expanded Unemployment Benefits and you hear people say that means people will not come back to work. 600 dollars is so much of an incentive to stay home, how about we raise the minimum wage so thats not the issue when people are thinking about coming back to work. Thats a key part of this and in the covid relief package, the ppp program really led to the biggest as this is getting money when they did not need it, maybe even looking at the airlines program. It specifically said money had money, it limited what ceo us yes could take, no stock buybacks. A lot of those airlines are suffering because they took money out for the wealthiest in the last few years. This is a lot of work we have to do. With any program, we have to test that program with whether or not it is increasing income disparity. Wealth disparity. What are the requirements for that money to be utilized well . Trump paidissue, only 750 in federal income taxes. Thats a hell of a lot less than what immigrants contribute, ofdreds of aliens of dollars taxes every year. Isneed to be clear about who powering this country and who is praying on this country. They paid far more than trump that they continue to be treated as expendable. , think at the end of the day everything we do has to be about the consequences of tax policy and its structural policy that encourages a me First Society rather than a we First Society. Solving income equality and correcting our epidemic of corporate greed is going to. Equire an entire movement it will ensure that we finally profit. But people over at the end of the day, government has to be the great equalizer of opportunity and we have to take on this question of what i call individual supremacy. The individual supremacy manifests itself in a broken tax ism, so muchimby hate. It is our collective failure to act on Climate Change and climate jus