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
Sep 30, 2013
Wayne County, in Michigan, auctioned off more than 18,000 properties in the last two years; these are properties it had seized due to delinquent taxes. The purchasers of 80 percent of those properties are now behind on THEIR taxes.
These properties are often bought up by speculators, sometimes for as little as $500 each, who either sit on them hoping to flip them or rent them out for three years until the county, in turn, forecloses on them.
What a scam these thieves have going! Some of these thieves are small time; others, not so small. But whatever their size, they are only following the lead of even bigger tax rip-off artists–big corporations like General Motors.
GM just announced it wants yet another tax abatement of 1.8 million dollars from the city of Detroit to build two logistics facilities at its Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant. This is the same plant the city spent 250 million dollars on for acquiring the land in 1980; it then gave GM a 50 percent tax abatement on the property for the next 12 years. GM claims the tax breaks will provide jobs–just like it promised the earlier ones would provide 6,000 jobs at the plant. In reality, it now employs only 1,600 workers there.
Detroit’s Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr claims the city is bankrupt and is threatening to cut city worker pensions and retiree health care benefits. If the city is broke, it should make the big tax cheats like GM pay back the money they’ve stolen for decades!