You know the number… The one on the check… The one you earned… The one you don’t get.
You know what you made.
You know what you took home.
And you know the space between them is rent you haven’t paid. Groceries you haven’t bought. Gas you haven’t pumped. The government took its cut before you kept yourself alive.
A corporation doesn’t let that happen. A corporation subtracts the cost of survival first.
You don’t get to subtract shit.
Corporations get to deduct the cost of doing business. Every expense required to keep the enterprise functioning is subtracted before a single dollar is taxed. The electricity. The rent. The supplies. The travel. The CEO’s lunch. All of it. Because the system understands that a business has costs that must be paid before profit exists.
You get taxed on what you earn. Not what you keep. The rent that keeps a roof over your head isn’t deductible. The groceries that keep you alive aren’t deductible. The gas that gets you to the job that pays the taxes isn’t deductible. The childcare that makes it possible for you to work isn’t deductible in any meaningful way. The medical debt that bankrupts you isn’t deductible unless it exceeds 7.5% of your income. As if illness should have a deductible.
A person makes $52,000 a year. The median income. Every two weeks, $1,450 comes out before they see a cent. Federal. State. Social Security. Medicare. That’s $37,700 a year they actually get. Rent is $1,400 a month. $16,800 a year. Gone. Groceries are $400 a month. $4,800 a year. Gone. Gas is $200 a month. $2,400 a year. Gone. Car insurance. $150 a month. $1,800 a year. Gone. Health insurance premium. $350 a month. $4,200 a year. Gone. Student loan payment. $300 a month. $3,600 a year. Gone. Utilities. $200 a month. $2,400 a year. Gone. That’s $36,000 in survival costs.
They have $1,700 left.
For the year.
For clothes. For medicine. For an emergency. For anything that resembles a life.
And the tax code considers them profitable. The tax code considers that $52,000 as income. Not revenue minus expenses. Income. As if the rent and the food and the gas were optional. As if they chose to be alive.
In 1913, the 16th Amendment established the federal income tax. The same year, the Revenue Act allowed corporations to deduct “ordinary and necessary” business expenses. From the very first moment, the code understood that a corporation had costs. That a corporation needed to survive before it could be taxed. It never extended the same understanding to you. The original tax code assumed that your survival was free. That your food and shelter and transportation were luxuries. That your profit was your gross income. And that the government’s cut came before your rent.
In 1986, the Tax Reform Act under Reagan was supposed to simplify the code. It eliminated many individual deductions. It preserved the corporate ones. The three-martini lunch stayed deductible. Your kid’s lunch didn’t. The corporate expense account stayed. The worker’s commute didn’t. The mortgage interest deduction stayed. The renter got nothing.
The reform was a heist dressed up as simplification.
In 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Republicans. Trump. Corporate tax rate dropped from 35% to 21%. The corporate alternative minimum tax eliminated. The individual tax cuts were temporary. The corporate tax cuts were permanent. The standard deduction doubled, which sounds generous until you realize the average rent in America is $16,800 a year and the standard deduction for a single person is $14,600. The roof still isn’t covered.
Citizens United gave corporations free speech. The 14th Amendment was written to protect freed slaves. Between 1868 and 1912, corporations brought 307 cases under the 14th Amendment. Freed slaves brought 19. The tax code treats corporations as people when it benefits them and as super-people when it comes to deductions. They get the rights of persons and the privileges of enterprises. You get neither. They get to deduct survival. You don’t. They get to exist before they pay. You pay before you exist.
The mortgage interest deduction cost the federal government $30 billion in 2023. Who gets it? Homeowners. Disproportionately white. Disproportionately wealthy. The Black family that was redlined out of homeownership for decades doesn’t get the deduction. The renter who pays someone else’s mortgage doesn’t get the deduction. The childcare tax credit maxes out at $2,100 per child. Daycare costs $10,000 a year. The credit doesn’t cover a quarter. And it’s non-refundable for many families, which means if you don’t make enough to owe taxes, you don’t get it. The people who need it most get the least. The medical expense deduction only kicks in after your costs exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income. As if the first 7.5% of your illness is a luxury. As if you should be grateful for the cancer that didn’t quite cost enough to deduct. The family that goes bankrupt from medical debt discovers that the tax code considers their survival optional. Every deduction that would help the people who need it most is capped, means-tested, or denied entirely. Every deduction that helps the people who need it least is permanent, unlimited, and sacred.
The Democrats had the presidency, the House, and the Senate in 2021. They didn’t raise the corporate tax rate. They didn’t make childcare fully deductible. They didn’t make rent deductible. They didn’t make survival a business expense. The carried interest loophole persists. The step-up in basis at death persists. The corporate tax rate stays low. The system doesn’t change when the party changes. Because the system is working as designed. The Democrats don’t fail to fix it. They choose not to. Because the people who fund them benefit from the same code.
The counter-argument comes. “You get the standard deduction.” $14,600 for a single person. The average rent in America is $1,400 a month. That’s $16,800 a year. Just for housing. The standard deduction doesn’t even cover the roof. “You can itemize.” Only if your expenses exceed the standard deduction. And even then, you can’t deduct groceries. You can’t deduct gas. You can’t deduct the cost of being alive. “Corporations create jobs.” Workers create the value. The corporation extracts the surplus. The tax code rewards the extraction and punishes the labor.
The CEO’s steak is a write-off.
Your kid’s lunch isn’t.
The corporation’s survival is a business expense.
Yours isn’t.
The code was written by people who eat on the company’s dime and sleep in houses the government subsidizes.
And YOU… are left with $1,700 and a tax bill that assumes you don’t need to eat.
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“A person makes $52,000 a year. The median income. Every two weeks, $1,450 comes out before they see a cent. Federal. State. Social Security. Medicare.”
Um NO! Every two weeks $610 to $650 comes out.
“On a $52,000 annual salary, you will pay approximately $390 to $415 per two weeks in federal and state income taxes (assuming you are single with standard deductions). When you add FICA (Social Security and Medicare), your total tax deduction will be about $610 to $650 every two weeks.”
shhhhhhhhh
It’s simple math. 🤣