Memory Lapse?

Maybe the McCourts just forgot to pay their taxes.

Oh, no, it was our memory lapse. We saw the headline yesterday, but we were so distracted we never got to the inside of the fish-wrapper to follow up on this. ME, however, was on the ball.

Robert Schooley sent me a link to this article by Michael Hiltzik, which is kind of a follow-up to the piece here the other day about rich folks paying little or no taxes. It's about how the now-divorced couple that owns the L.A. Dodgers made $108 million over a recent five-year period and paid zero state and federal taxes.

This was something that drove my late father to distraction. He worked for the Internal Revenue Service and hated his job for many, many reasons. One was just seeing how unfair was the spreading-around of the tax burden. He would come home from work some day, shaking his head over the inequity ... how some poor guy living off minimum wage and struggling to feed his family would be hit with a huge tax bill while some zillionaire got away without paying a nickel. Too often, it was like famed hotel magnate Leona Helmsley said: "We [the rich] don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes."

Hiltzik:

To everyone who claims that our wealthiest citizens pay more than their fair share of income taxes and we should cut them a break because they're the ones who, you know, create jobs in our economy, I have four words for you:

Frank and Jamie McCourt.

The McCourts, who own the Los Angeles Dodgers (so she says; he says he's the owner and she's not), jointly pocketed income totaling $108 million from 2004 through 2009, according to documents Jamie McCourt recently filed in the couple's divorce case in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

On that sum, they paid zero federal and state income tax. Jamie suggests that some tax breaks will apply this year too.

This reminds me of the old line about how true scandal lies not in what's illegal, but what's legal. It's certainly an edifying window into the lengths some people will go to avoid paying taxes.

Does a nation that accepts & (though a supposed democracy) allows this perpetual inequity deserve to survive? We type a firm "NO!" The experiment is over, it's always been a lie (true democracy will never be allowed in this world of shit & pain) so bring it to an end now. Maybe we should just have an election for "swellest rich guy" & appoint him King of America. You fucking sheep would like that, wouldn't you?