While more people are out of work now than at any time since the Great Depression, COVID-19 ravages through the country, and middle class folks are lining up in their cars at food banks, the following news items caught my attention.
I came across this article again recently: These 91 companies paid no federal taxes in 2018, on CNBC. A lot has written about this since then, of course, but even though it’s nearly six months old, the truth of it still makes me seethe as my hair smolders.
Nearly 100 companies in the Fortune 500 had an effective federal tax rate of 0% or less in 2018, according to a new report.
The report looks at the first year since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 went into effect.
The list of companies covers a wide range of industries and includes some of the biggest companies in the United States.
And then there’s this recent news on CNBC:
U.S. billionaires saw their fortunes soar by $434 billion during the nation’s lockdown between mid-March and mid-May [2020], according to a new report.
Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg had the biggest gains.
Bezos added $34.6 billion to his wealth and Zuckerberg picked up $25 billion.