Greed at a Glance
A weekly update on avarice in America and beyond

April 7, 2008

The tax returns Hillary and Bill Clinton released this past Friday give us a fairly clear picture of the former First Family’s finances — and a distorted view of life in their lofty income bracket. The Clintons have averaged over $10 million per year since the 20th century began. They’ve paid federal income taxes on that income at a 31 percent rate. Their fellow deep pockets in the over $10 million neighborhood pay taxes at a considerably lower rate. How much lower? In 2005, IRS data show, the 13,776 taxpayers who reported at least $10 million in income paid just 20.9 percent of that income in federal tax . . .

State and local taxes in the United States can actually tilt more to the benefit of the top than federal taxes. In Colorado, noted an analysis last week in the Fort Collins Coloradoan, households making over $692,000 — the state’s richest 1 percent — shell out about 6 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes. The bottom 60 percent, the under $47,000 crowd, pay over 9 percent. Many of Colorado’s top 1 percent have congregated in Aspen, the mountain town that “has spent the past few decades,” notes former Aspen Times editor Andy Stone, “firmly establishing itself as a haven for the super-rich.” People in Aspen, Stone observed last week, once “cared about their community.” And now? “Instead of a community,” says Stone, “Aspen has become an investment opportunity.”

By every measure, jobless figures released last week confirm, the U.S. economy is skidding into trouble. Why isn't Congress moving faster to address the squeeze on average working families? Too few members of Congress, suggests Center for Responsive Politics director Sheila Krumholz, personally “feel the same pain” as average Americans. A new Center report on lawmaker personal financial wealth, published last month, found that U.S. senators and representatives together hold $3.6 billion in net worth. Out past the Beltway, only 1 percent of American families hold over $1 million in assets, beyond their home. By contrast, 58 of the Senate's 100 members now sport financial net worths over $1 million. The House millionaire rate: 44 percent . . .

Power-suits on Wall Street are always talking about the “risks” they take. But Manhattan's real risk-takers may be the construction workers who operate the city’s tower cranes. Seven people died last month when one New York tower crane failed. Two workers also died last month in a Miami crane accident. In North Carolina, ten have died in crane accidents over the past decade. What could be done to limit real workplace risk? In the UK, lawmakers have just enacted a Corporate Manslaughter Act that subjects companies to unlimited fines if their managements can be found “responsible for gross failings leading to a death.” British unions, noting that top execs have too often “taken an overly casual approach” toward worker safety, last week urged tougher measures that would subject executives to personal fines and imprisonment . . .

One top business exec who won’t be going to prison anytime soon turns out to be a billionaire California real estate developer who pled guilty in December to filing a false 2002 tax return — and later admitted he had lied on all his tax returns from 1998 through 2004. The billionaire, the 64-year-old Igor Olenicoff, could have faced three years in jail for his guilty plea. But Olenicoff has forked over $52 million in back taxes and fines and agreed to bring back into the United States all the money he had stashed away in the Bahamas, Liechtenstein, and other foreign tax havens. In return, prosecutors have agreed that Olenicoff should have to serve only one year of probation. Forbes estimates Olenicoff’s net worth at $1.6 billion.

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