Dear Editor:

Income tax returns for 2025 were due last week. Most Americans pay twice: payroll tax and income tax. Mainers pay a third: state income tax. For average wage earners ($48K to $103K), the IRS marginal tax rate is 22%.

For people in this salary range, these taxes are significant reductions of their personal wealth. Relatively speaking, they contribute heavily to the federal budget and benefit little from the public assets and services provided by the US government.

By contrast, the top 0.01% of wealthy Americans and their corporations pay little or no IRS taxes, thanks to loopholes in the US Tax Code that favor the ultra-rich and accelerate the rise of wealth inequality.

Unlike Presidents Reagan, H.W. Bush, Clinton, W. Bush, Obama, and Biden, our current POTUS will not release his tax returns. Excessive (and fraudulent?) exploitation of tax deductions may be the reason.

If billionaires drew salaries from their businesses, they would pay up 37% income tax on that money…but they don’t. Instead, they shelter their wealth in stock ownership and the growth of stock value, and they access personal funds through low-interest borrowing with their stock portfolios as collateral. Neither of these financial practices is taxed.

Take Elon Musk — please. Although Tesla granted him a one trillion dollar ($1,000,000,000,000) pay package, none of it is declared as salary. His auto corporation, benefiting from federal tax breaks, reported zero (0.0) federal income tax liability, despite its $5.7B pre-tax income in 2025. As long as he does not sell any of his stock, his own effective tax rate approaches zero.

Donald Trump and his billionaire cronies contribute relatively little of their income (0.10% — 4%) to the US Treasury while profiting greatly from the tax-funded infrastructure and social capital at their disposal.

This skewing of tax policy is especially pernicious in times of war. George W Bush twice cut taxes for the wealthy during his two expensive wars: Iraq ($3T) and Afghanistan ($2.3T); Donald Trump’s Iran war ($2B per day) follows his two large tax cuts.

During World War II (when America was great), the top marginal tax rate was 94%.

Bill Hammond

Boothbay