Criminals may have stolen as much as half of the unemployment benefits the U.S. has been pumping out over the past year, some experts say.
Why it matters: Unemployment fraud during the pandemic could easily reach $400 billion, according to some estimates, and the bulk of the money likely ended in the hands of foreign crime syndicates — making this not just theft, but a matter of national security.
Washington — American consumers absorbed another surge in prices in May — a 0.6% increase over April and 5% over the past year, the biggest 12-month inflation spike since 2008.
The May rise in consumer prices that the Labor Department reported Thursday reflected a range of goods and services now in growing demand as people increasingly shop, travel, dine out and attend entertainment events in a rapidly reopening economy.
Prices for a lot of things are surging across the U.S., and John McConnell's recent car-shopping experience helps explain why.
McConnell, from Colorado Springs, Colo., was recently looking for a Toyota Tacoma to replace his two-year-old Nissan Altima and was shocked to see the one he wanted priced several thousand dollars above the sticker price.
He plans to buy it anyway.
"I'm not going through a midlife crisis. I just kind of have an itch for this," McConnell says. "I'm willing to pay a little bit more right now, I guess, because right now I can afford to."
After a year of the coronavirus pandemic, McConnell was itching to go camping more and do more outdoor activities. And like many Americans who were able to continue working through the pandemic, he had the money.
For regular people, borrowing money is often something done out of necessity, say for a car or a home. But for the ultrawealthy, it can be a way to access billions without producing income, and thus, income tax.
The tax math provides a clear incentive for this. If you own a company and take a huge salary, you’ll pay 37% in income tax on the bulk of it. Sell stock and you’ll pay 20% in capital gains tax — and lose some control over your company. But take out a loan, and these days you’ll pay a single-digit interest rate and no tax; since loans must be paid back, the IRS doesn’t consider them income. Banks typically require collateral, but the wealthy have plenty of that.
The vast majority of the ultrawealthy’s loans do not appear in the tax records obtained by ProPublica since they are generally not disclosed to the IRS. But occasionally, the loans are disclosed in securities filings. In 2014, for example, Oracle revealed that its CEO, Ellison, had a credit line secured by about $10 billion of his shares.
Last year Tesla reported that Musk had pledged some 92 million shares, which were worth about $57.7 billion as of May 29, 2021, as collateral for personal loans. Elon Musk Tesla Inc. 2014–2018 Wealth Growth: $13.9B Total Income Reported: $1.52B (10.94% of wealth) Total Taxes Paid: $455M (3.27% of wealth)
With the exception of one year when he exercised more than a billion dollars in stock options, Musk’s tax bills in no way reflect the fortune he has at his disposal. In 2015, he paid $68,000 in federal income tax. In 2017, it was $65,000, and in 2018 he paid no federal income tax. Between 2014 and 2018, he had a true tax rate of 3.27%.
The IRS records provide glimpses of other massive loans. In both 2016 and 2017, investor Carl Icahn, who ranks as the 40th-wealthiest American on the Forbes list, paid no federal income taxes despite reporting a total of $544 million in adjusted gross income (which the IRS defines as earnings minus items like student loan interest payments or alimony). Icahn had an outstanding loan of $1.2 billion with Bank of America among other loans, according to the IRS data. It was technically a mortgage because it was secured, at least in part, by Manhattan penthouse apartments and other properties.
Have you ever read those articles where some extremely well-off family details their budget and then bemoans that they’re barely getting by?
It’s ridiculous that anyone could complain about raking in $350,000 a year, and it’s clear many of these folks are wildly out of touch with how privileged they are. But while these families may be extreme (and annoying), they aren’t alone. It’s not just the wealthy who fall into the trap of earning more only to spend more and feel just as dissatisfied.
I was listening to the news this morning, thinking how much money crime and terrorism bring into local news stations, thanks to the engauge viewership from riveting crime and terror stories. Those viewers, often feeling sad and disconcerted about the direction of our country, are prime markets for advertising.
If the promotion of terror and crime on television is so profitable to local news, then it makes perfect sense for local news to give back profits to communities they harm by promoting violence, by placing a tax on advertising. A slice of the profits made by advertising should go directly back in supporting law enforcement.
Market power often comes from genuine innovations, efficient business models and the creation of stuff that consumers like, but it also has costs for society. Those costs are outlined in the classic theory of monopoly. Without competition, companies can increase their prices to maximize profits. As prices for products rise, many consumers can't afford them, and so the monopolistic company reduces what it produces and sells. And that means they need fewer workers.
If it were just one company, it wouldn't be such a big deal for the overall economy. But Eeckhout documents an astonishing rise of market power across all sorts of industries since 1980. We're not just talking about the usual suspects here: Amazon, Google, Facebook and so on. We're talking about everything from the makers of cat food to the sellers of caskets. More than half of all the dry cat food in the United States is sold by one company. Almost 90% of mayonnaise in the U.S. is sold by two companies. Airlines, social media, pacemakers, pharmaceuticals, energy, cars, home improvement — there are so many industries that are increasingly dominated by only a few companies.
