the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Feb 20, 2017
If working people think they are paying more in taxes and getting less in services, they are right!
Revenue from business taxes has plunged in Michigan over five years’ time between 2011 and 2016.
In 2011 in Michigan, the revenue that came from “principal business taxes” was 2.06 BILLION dollars. In 2016 in Michigan, the revenue from “principal business taxes” was only two per cent of what it had been: 40 million dollars.
Adding insult to injury, in 2016, the state handed out tax refunds to businesses totaling just short of a BILLION dollars—880 million dollars!
These business tax refunds were introduced in Michigan by Republican Governor Engler in 1995 and were then expanded by Democratic Governor Granholm during her eight years in office. The gift to corporations was a bipartisan effort!
In all the different ways that revenue comes in to the state treasury, the working population and retirees are funding Michigan’s budget now.
In 2016, according to the House Fiscal Agency, Net Business Taxes were only 2% of state revenue. The other 98% of state revenue in 2016 came from:
Since 2011, all the different bills passed by the state legislature to cut business taxes were called by one expert, “death by a thousand cuts.”
This led to where Michigan is today—the population pays more and more while “tax refunds” are issued to corporations worth trillions of dollars. No wonder the schools, the roads and cities are starved for money!