Tax Day 2022: your petition signature in action

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Emily Eberly/Oxfam

This Tax Day, we’re taking your petition signature to the Biden administration and Congress and letting them know it’s time to tax the rich and invest in lifting people out of poverty.

One thing we know for sure is that inequality makes everything—from humanitarian crises to the impacts of climate change—worse. Yet as families fall deeper into poverty, the ultra-wealthy continue to amass wealth while paying nearly nothing in taxes.

According to leaked tax returns, the top 25 billionaires paid an average of 3.4 percent in federal income tax in recent years. Meanwhile, the average taxpayer pays a rate of 13 percent.

It’s no accident that the wealthy have gotten away with this. For decades, the ultra-rich and corporations have used their economic might to pressure Congress to change the rules to let them avoid taxes, pay poverty wages, and avoid responsibility. They worked hard to rewrite the rules and rig the game. Enough is enough.

It’s time to tell the Biden administration how we feel.

Your signature matters

Over the last few months, you have been raising your voice to let your elected officials know that our rigged tax system is unacceptable.

Oxfam America is joining with Americans for Tax Fairness, Daily Kos and Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield (of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream) in partnership with MoveOn to demand that the ultra-wealthy pay their fair share in taxes. Together we will be delivering more than 500,000 of your signatures to the Biden Administration and Congress. Your voice in this fight matters, and when we join our voices together our message becomes impossible to ignore.

We are taking your signature straight to the Biden administration and Congress and letting them know it’s time to tax the rich and invest in lifting people out of poverty.

What we hope to achieve

When we tell Congress we want to tax the rich, it isn’t just because the wealthy need to pay their fair share. It is also because we can use the money from taxing the rich to invest in the health of our country. Families deserve it and our environment requires it.

New calculations from Oxfam found that fair taxes on America’s billionaires and giant corporations could generate $252 billion dollars in revenue every year to lift people out of poverty. Taxing the rich would allow us to invest in programs that are proven to help families like:

  • The child tax credit
  • Expanded and affordable health care
  • Child nutrition waivers
  • Public health COVID programs
  • Affordable and accessible child care
  • Paid leave
  • Clean energy and the environment

Together we are letting our elected officials know that the growing inequality gap is unacceptable, and it is past time that they do something about it.

Thanks to you and your advocacy we are able to make our voices heard in the halls of power.

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