There was a fascinating article in The Dever Post yesterday—it’s practically just a list—examining how certain extremely wealthy people pay very, very little in Colorado property taxes. Familiar names and faces like Tom Cruise, Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, Dick Ebersol of NBC and his wife actress Susan St. James and others pay far, far less in property taxes than most home-owning, God-fearing, rank and file tea-bagging Americans do. What’s a close-minded wingnut to make of this? It’s not what Michele Bachmann, Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin want for America is it??? Or is it?

Hey, wait a minute, Brad Reed writes at Crooks & Liars, this could serve as an effective meme for making those amongst us who are totally impervious to “facts” and “reality” (I’m looking at you, teabaggers) understand how the rich often screw the rest of us over. It might even be a way of persuading the un-persuadable that they are actually acting against their own economic self-interests by their politically unsophisticated participation in far-right advocacy groups. From “How we can convince Tea Partiers to raise taxes on rich people”:

So The Denver Post has done us an extremely useful service today by highlighting just one of many ways that rich people in the United States get away with paying practically zero taxes. I think this could be useful because many of the rich people featured in the story happen to be Hollywood celebrities, who are often the bane of our conservative brethren on a great many issues. Let’s take a look:

Actors, captains of industry, an Ivy League astrologer, sports figures, politicians, energy giants, schoolteachers from Pasadena, Calif. All these are also considered farmers or ranchers for tax purposes in Colorado. They have secured low property taxes through agricultural designations on land they own even though they personally have little or nothing to do with producing food — the reason state legislators originally created a low property-tax rate for the agriculture sector.

In some cases, the properties where they have second, third or fourth homes were traditional working ranches before they were sold to the wealthy and became what, in real-estate lingo, are termed “gentleman ranches” or “recreational ranches.”

You can see where this is going, can’t you? And once you get into the gory details, things get really ugly:

Actor Tom Cruise owns five parcels of land on a scenic mesa northwest of Telluride that has become an enclave of high-end vacation homes. Sheep graze around the mansions for brief periods each year, according to the assessor’s office. Cruise pays just more than $400 in taxes for 248 acres for which he paid nearly $18 million between 1994 and 2002. He pays $11,380 in residential property taxes for the land where his $9.7 million home is located.

Yes, this is how poorly our tax systems across the country are designed: Tom Bleeping Cruise can get away with paying $400 a year in taxes for property that’s worth around $18 million, all because he occasionally allows sheep to walk through it.

Want another ugly detail? Check out this one:

David Tresemer, an astrologer and Harvard-educated psychologist, owns 191 acres and four structures that are listed as farm buildings or residences in the foothills west of Boulder where he operates the StarHouse. It is advertised as a spiritual and cultural space for celebrations of the seasons, the lunar cycles and rituals from ancient and indigenous cultures.

He pays $11.48 in taxes for 38 of the vacant acres and $3,699 for the remainder of the land with the buildings.

OK, even if Ma and Pa Tea Party are still Tom Cruise fans, there ain’t no way they’re happy that a Harvard-educated astrologer is paying just over $11 in taxes for 38 vacant acres of land. And remember, these are only two examples that demonstrate how the rich and their accountants have completely gamed the tax code to their advantage. A more thorough audit of other rich people in other states would no doubt unveil countless other horrors.

Hey, have you got time for another one? Sure you do:

Dick Ebersol and Susan Saint James own a 35-acre lot in the upscale West Meadows subdivision near Telluride. They purchased the land for $1.8 million in 1996 and pay $123 in property taxes on it annually because there is hay on it. They also own an $11 million home in the Mountain Village.

How many Fox News-watching slobs would feel good about themselves if they ever saw THAT story discussed on their favorite rightwing Republican propaganda network? It’ll never happen of course, but it’s worth daydreaming about…

Read more: In Colorado, some famous faces, names get ag-land tax breaks, too (The Denver Post)

I don’t think that Tea Party members want higher taxes for the rich, they want fair/even taxes for everyone.. Rich people or middle classers shouldn’t be treated better than the poor in the eyes of the IRS.

I’m not usually reflexively anti-tax, but I hate the idea of property taxes on people who own a single residence. Essentially the government is charging you rent, preventing people from becoming self sufficient and withdrawing from the economy.

If it’s not your primary residence, however, tax away.

Knarf..

VEry good point!!

Will someone (preferably an Enlightened, eco-friendly, non-teabagging person) please define “fair” as it is used in the phrase “pay their fair share of taxes”?

In the meantime, I have this wild idea that what is fair for all is whatever each individual is willing to pay voluntarily. Imagine a government funded solely and completely by whatever the citizenry is willing to pay. It would be the first truly moral government in human history. Because any tax money not surrendered voluntarily is by definition taken by force. And that’s a bad thing.

Right?

The TP’ers won’t put 2 and 2 together with this,

They’ll only see it as “hollywood liberal elites scamming the system”.

-AND-

They’ll bring out their go-to reason to excuse the bullshit behavior on the right;  “See. Liberals do it, too!”

@Knarf - I’m guessing sales and income tax would have to be raised to.. uh.. let’s say ‘fascinating’ levels if property tax was eliminated.

Adam Smith, the “Father of Capitalism” for my tea-bagging friends said this in his seminal work, “The Wealth of Nations.”

V.2.25

I. The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state. The expense of government to the individuals of a great nation is like the expense of management to the joint tenants of a great estate, who are all obliged to contribute in proportion to their respective interests in the estate.

Yes..my tea-bagging friends, the Father of Capitalism states that the rich must pay more.

In regards to what’s fair? How about returning their tax rates to the rates they held under their trickle-down God, Ronald Reagan?  That would immediately eliminate the deficit.

Richard, I can almost see our fingers shaking while breathlessly typing this post.

This is exactly what the teabaggers hate the most. Rich people pay so little taxes because they’ve made a partnership with government via campaign donations and government does what the fuck it wants, when it wants and to whom it wants.

government picking winners and losers. I have an idea, let’s elect more beltway power players so they have even more power.

get government out of the business of picking winners and losers.

btw, Tom Cruise, David Tresemer, Dick Ebersol and Susan Saint James are all flaming eco-liberals and I will bet my last dollar contribute exclusively to elect democrats.

how is this a teabagger issue?

@Mark Scherer

The rich do pay more.

In 2008, the top 1% earners paid 38% of all federal income taxes.  The top 5% paid more than half of all federal income taxes.  The top 25% paid 86% of all federal income taxes.

The top 50% of income earners pay 97% of all federal income taxes.

http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html

what percentage would be more fair to you?

one more thing and I’ll leave you all alone this thread. Raising taxes to the levels of the reagan years would raise taxes more on the poorest of Americans than it would the richest.

but that would be more fair, right?

Most of these low figures are from “conservation easements” that are designed to prevent unrestricted development while allowing “farmers” to maintain agricultural use without undue burden. If these were not present, the only path would be development. So it could be considered it a trade off. Funds from perceived exclusivity tend to balance out disparity.

if the top 50% pay 97% of income taxes and 1% pay 38%, this sounds more indicative of the shift of wealth upwards, providing for this kind of insane proportion to be taken from the wealthier classes at what are relatively low tax levels.

in other words, it just proved how much more money wealthy people make than the lot of us in lower income levels.

Those who choose to pursue moflicky’s links should understand that the “National Taxpayer’s Union” is a “non-partisan” (for legal purposes) organization that insists that rich people are overtaxed and that Americans in general pay too many taxes.  Evidence to the contrary: US taxes are among the lowest in the world and we have the crumbling infrastructure to show for it.

ahem: I got yer non-partisan right here:
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/national-taxpayers-union

BTW: That ridiculous set of “statistics” is simply a very silly set of propaganda.  Those poor, poor rich people.

@Peeps quoting tax data:

Don’t the top 10% of the wealthiest Americans make 90% of the money..?  Yet they’re not paying 90% of the taxes..?

@Ray, No one is ‘non-partisan’, everyone has a point of view. Knowing that point of view is can be useful, but it’s no excuse for ignoring it.

I’m sure you can find a source that contradicts these figures, right?

And I’m sure you feel rightwingwatch.org of course is beyond reproach in their fairness and balance, right?

NTU’s source data is from the IRS - they’re probably right wing propagandists too, right?

@smog, very true. and your remedy is? come on, come right out and say it - government regulation of salaries and capital gains, and redistribution and a command economy.

There, I knew you could do it.

@moflicky Whoa there… this statement shows a key mistake in your thinking:

“come on, come right out and say it - government regulation of salaries and capital gains, and redistribution and a command economy.”

You decided that everything is a binary switch, If he’s not on your side advocating lower taxes, then he obviously wants to live in a soviet style command economy… Which is laughable. Reality is more nuanced than that. I can for instance want taxes to be 10% higher on the rich without also advocating that everyone wear brown uniforms and swear fealty to the great ruler. Now, that said, I notice your links specifically address income taxes and not payroll or sales or property taxes… why would that be? Oh right, because when we show income taxes only it’s a more dramatic and striking curve and it leads people to come to the conclusion that the rich are taxed too much, which is far from the case. Heck, look at the most prosperous times in US history 1945-1970 and you see the highest tax rates ever as well as highest union membership ever. Yet we thrived. Taxes sure didn’t kill our economy then, did they?

I guess the key is fairness. What is fair? Everyone wants to pay as few taxes as possible, that’s a given. Our current system of taxing primarily earned income rather than capital gains (unearned income that you make solely from investments derived from a critical mass of wealth). Added to that are payroll taxes that those who don’t have jobs (because they make unearned income) don’t have to pay. Oh and how can I forget the crippling tax structures on the state and local level that crush small businesses in favor of their larger competitors. It’s weird.. it’s almost like we have a system designed to advantage people and business with the deepest pockets.

At the very least wouldn’t it make sense to tax all income the same and not advantage unearned over earned? Let realized stock gains, real estate sales profits, stock dividends, bond coupons, all be taxed like regular income.. Why not?

Tim has already pretty much covered my end here, so i’ll just say this. your assumption that i want a “command economy” is so wildly off the mark and presumptuous that i have to laugh. a central economy is pretty much the exact opposite of what i would like to see.

if you had read the link i provided, you might have understood this. but here it goes, and i speak only for myself and no one else that you’re arguing with right now.

btw, here is that link again for you, plus another…

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Spanish_Revolution

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Anarchist_economics

i think we should localize and decentralize most sectors of production and, while we’re at it, actually start to produce things for ourselves out of cheap eco-friendly material. lets see… radically divest from oil as energy source, transition to a completely voluntary labor system based on vouchers instead of federal reserve notes, and basically create a working society where everyone provides and everyone is provided for fairly and modestly, but comfortably. this is possible, without the need for a state. how’s that for small government?

To be fair, ANYONE could do the “agricultural land” thing in many states.  A friend of mine in Virginia inherited his family’s estate (large house, multiple acres, one outbuilding).  He allows a dairy farmer to keep his cows on his property, so he pays less in property taxes.  He is not “rich” nor a “celebrity.”

Anyone curious why Moflicky spends so much time on here defending right wing causes like the Koch Brothers? I understand someone having a right wing viewpoint, but why defend oligarchs like the Koches?

I just read an article about a company called NMS (NMS.com) which has a contract with the Koch Industries to defend the Koch Brothers online- on their website they list that they do “Brand Protection” and “Blogger Engagement”, “Reputation Management” and “Social Media Marketing”. Apparently one of their people got banned from Wikipedia for whitewashing all of the articles on the Koch Brothers. Among the things they added to Wikipedia was “baseless comparisons between Koch and conspiracy theories surrounding George Soros”. Something our own Moflicky also brought up in the comments on this website. Curious, isn’t it?

And NMS also represents the Cheesecake Factory! You like cheesecake, Moflicky?

I’ve never understood why people bitch about property taxes.  Your mortgage is 10 times as much and you don’t bitch about that.  The private sector eats you alive while politicians keep all the light on the government.  Quite a brilliant plan, actually.