The People's Cube - Political Satire

February 2013 marks the 100-year anniversary of the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment, authorizing the collection of a national income tax and the creation of the Internal Revenue Service. As a duly self-appointed member of the Inner Circle of the Party, I hereby issue an executive order proclaiming 2013 as


In celebration of this momentous milestone, let's take a trip back to the thrilling and heady days of yesteryear and see just how far we have come in the science of Progressive Wealth Redistribution.

In 1913, anyone making over $3,000 per year was required to file a federal income tax return. This was the equivalent of slightly more than $68,000 in 2011 dollars. Currently, anyone making more than $9,500 per year is required to file a return with the IRS.

Even in 1913 the government was mindful of making the evil rich pay their fair share, which has to be a bigger share than anyone else. What they lacked was the audacity of hope in their demands. Let's take a quick look at the 1913 tax tables included on the venerable Form 1040


Thus, while a person who earned $50,000 in 1913 owed the federal government $500 in taxes, the person who earned $75,000 in 1913 owed $1,000. If the taxpayer was truly greedy and stole $100,000 from the working class in 1913, he had to pay $1,750 in taxes, while a true enemy of the people earning $250,000 was forced to redistribute $6,000 of his ill-gotten gains to the federal government. And for those "captains of industry," as the arch-imperialists used to call themselves, men who earned $500,000 per year, they had to pony up $20,250 in taxes.

It was a good start, but before we get too dizzy with success here, we must realize that the percentages involved were truly minuscule. A person earning $100,000 paid only 1.75% in taxes. The millionaires and billionaires who earned $250,000 in a year paid but 3.1%, and the blood-drinking corporate fat-cats earning a cool half million bucks only turned over 4.05% of their earnings for redistribution.

This is something about which we can be proud in this new era of progressive redistribution: although the rich are still not paying their fair share, we are making progressive progress in forcing them to return a higher percentage of the money they have stolen from the people. Let's just do a little conceited comparison of 1913 rates to 2012 rates:


While it does warm my heart to realize that a person earning $100,000 today is paying well over ten times the tax rate as a person earning the same amount a century ago, we can't say the same for the person earning a half million dollars a year, and in any case, these evil rich people are not paying their fair share even at these rates.
One thing we can be proud of, even in the light of these still obviously far too light tax burdens, is the standard deduction rate. In 1913, the personal exemption on a tax return for a person filing single was $3,000. In 2012, that standard deduction is $5,950. Here is somewhere we have truly held the line, dear comrades. Remember, $3,000 in 1913 was the equivalent of a bit more than $68,000 in 2011 dollars. For the standard deduction to remain on par with 1913, we would have to allow tax filers an exemption of over $130,000! Yet we keep them content by showing our largess in allowing them to exempt a mere $5,950.

So let's raise a cup of vegan soy latte in toast of a century of progressive expansion of the Internal Revenue Service and the coercive redistribution of wealth. Be a patriot and pay those taxes, and vote for those candidates who see their duty to raise taxes to an even more equal rate.

Remember Comrades: The Obamaphone does not pay for itself!

A monthly check to you for the rest of your life - what's not to like?

....and comrades, the Federal Goobermit's debt on July 1, 1913 was, in 2012 dollars, 66.7 Billion! or expressed in a contemporary context.....0.067 Trillion!

increasing top line revenue while expanding operational losses and long term debt is a privilege made available to the masses by a compassionate Goobermit

the allocation of resources is too important to be left to the greedy Capitalist robber barons

let agitation for Directive 10-289 heighten

Not one mention of the ilegal, foriegn, corrupted, or UN-american FEDERAL RESERVE wich is up for a vote in the CONgress to renew its 100 year charter tho.....

It is pretty sad that BANKSTERS took over our money supply then the entire country back in 1913 THEN they bought and paid for the icome tax act through their bought & paid for CONgress yet nobody says shit about it.

Did you know that as a soverign nation we had the ability to PRINT OUR OWN MOENY FOR FREE instead of paying full face value to BORROW it (with interest) from foreign banks with american sounding names?

You people always focus on the communist infulences that are degrading our way of life, yet not one word is ever mentioned about the TRUE menace that has infiltrated EVERY country of the face of the planet with their fiat-money schemes, or they use the US military & the UN to bomb them back to the stone age and force it upon the survivors....RUSSIAN states included!

I will climb down off of my beet-box and return to the fields now.......

I just added this to the lead post, along with some other pictures.

[img]/images/Party_Communists_Celebrate.png[/img]

Congratulations, Betinov, this post is now in The Washington Times.

I am honored, Comrade Red Square. And Many thanks to the boys down in agit-prop for the illustrations.

PONZI-RS

A glorious endorsement of the IRS in a song about taxes... from a man named "Cash".

Perhaps in celebration that stodgy old IRS Eagle logo needs an update ...

Ahhhh, Comrade Marx - a glorious new rendition of the IRS logo! May I be so bold as to suggest a bright red background and having the scales tipped significantly toward the government and away from the citizens?

Associating the Obama logo with anything less than 1,000 years will not get past the White House censors.

InKrease the Kollective!!!

Comrades R.O.C.K. and Meow,

Points well taken. We shall celebrate the first of many hundreds of years; and, why even have a scale? The golden taxpayer clenched in The Eagle's beak more surely reflects the balance of power.

Comrade Marx - it is truly a Beautiful Thing which you have wrought!

The Kollektive will surely be proud of your MOST equal efforts!

I agree that the IRS logo needs some updating. In fact, I undertook a bit of research on their old logo: It is in fact an ancient Egyptian Hieroglyph that translates: "If you want peace then fill my scales or the Vulture of Anubis will come peck out your liver." This is of course, only if I am right about it being Egyptian. There is a very similar Chinese logograph that reads: "My hawk will peck your eyes out if you do not balance the Emperor's scales. Then we shall have peace." Or I could be off base entirely, as there is a Mayan pictogram that translates as: "The Falcon with the drooping breasts and upraised fist demands social justice!"

We discovered a Sumerian script which loosely translates, "Fill these babies up because if Obama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy".

In our collective, we participate in coercive redistribution on a voluntary basis. Most of us peasents are recipents of the wealth spread around by our wise leaders. In addition we enjoy the pleasure of being free from the shackles of personal responsibility.

Fight evil KKKapitalism, embrace party approved socialsim...for the common good and enjoy equal misery for all. FORWARd.

Comrade Molotov wrote: Fight evil KKKapitalism, embrace party approved socialsim...for the common good and enjoy equal misery for all. FORWARd.

Prosperity is just another ReThugliKKKan Party™ lie!!!

--
Zampolit Blokhayev

Running Dog Thatcher was wrong. We will never run out of OPM with billions & billions of other planets to tax. Onward, boldly into the collectivist future - IRS. The Non-Taxians must be crushed...

Hey Ivan,

With all due respect, I'd like to suggest a possible new, "alternative," headline to your post:

IRS to CALIBRATE a century of progressive redistribution.

Yeah, we Progs got that "math" thingy down!

Your headline is quite fine with me, however. Just a thought, if you'll pardon the expression.

I.M. Craptek wrote:

ThumbScale- 2.jpg

This is most equal, Comrade Crap. Most equal!

Well now...seeing as tax day is just a few days away, and that I wrote this in the first place, I'd say it needs a good bumping to the head of the line.

Very instructive post! So... if we connect the dots... by 2050 everyone in your glorious country will pay... 3000% income tax? Surely a victory of collectivist activity!