Judge voids Trump IRS tax settlement
The workers who build the houses, drive the trucks, and serve the meals in the nation’s capital have a collective interest in the law applying equally to the rich man as to the poor man. They pay their taxes with the sweat of their brows and the silence of their labor. The decision being made in that courtroom does not include their voice. They are not the ones who can buy a judge’s favor, nor are they the ones who can vanish behind a labyrinth of legal maneuvers. It should.
We are told that a United States judge has voided an $1.8 billion settlement involving Donald Trump and the Internal Revenue Service. The judge claimed the suit was brought for “improper purposes.” He spoke of discipline. He spoke of procedure. He spoke as a man who believes that the law is a matter of etiquette rather than equity. But let us look at the machinery of this thing. The IRS, that great arm of the state, had agreed to settle. They had counted the coins. They had balanced the books. They reached out a hand to resolve the debt. And then, with a stroke of a pen, the settlement was broken. Why? Because the judge, or the forces arrayed behind him, decided that the game must continue.
This is not about justice. Justice is blind to the color of the suit. This is about leverage. When you void a settlement of that magnitude, you are not upholding the law; you are reopening the vault. You are telling the worker that the tax man can be delayed, debated, and dismantled until the money runs out or the will breaks. The referral of Trump’s attorney for possible disciplinary action is a hollow gesture. It is a pebble thrown at a steamroller. It suggests that there are rules for the lawyers, but there are no rules for the power.
I have seen this before, on the railroads and in the mines. The employer does not break the contract because he is evil; he breaks it because the cost of keeping it is less than the cost of breaking it. Here, the cost of the settlement - $1.8 billion - was perhaps too high for the political machinery to bear. So they voided it. They shifted the burden back onto the public treasury, and the public treasury is the worker’s purse. Every dollar that remains uncollected, every dollar that is tied up in endless litigation, is a dollar that cannot be spent on the schoolhouse, the hospital, or the road.
The “improper purpose” cited by the judge is a convenient fiction. The improper purpose is the preservation of privilege. The judge protects the process, yes, but he protects the process only insofar as it serves the powerful. If the process serves the worker, it is swift and final. If it serves the titan, it is a labyrinth with no exit.
Consider the man who fills out Form 1040. He does it with fear and with diligence. He knows that if he hides, he will be caught. He knows that the system is rigged, but he plays the game because he has no other choice. Now look at the man who owes $1.8 billion. He does not fill out the form. He hires the men who can void the settlement. He hires the men who can say “improper purpose” and watch the debt dissolve into procedural smoke. The worker pays the price of the privilege. That is the ratio. That is the arrangement.
We must ask ourselves: whose side is the law on? Is it on the side of the man who works, or the man who owns? When the judge strikes down the settlement, he is not striking down a deal. He is striking down the idea that wealth is accountable to the public. He is telling the worker that his taxes are a suggestion, while the taxman’s demand is a shackle.
Solidarity is not a feeling. It is the recognition that we are all in the same boat, whether we are rowing or whether we are being carried by the rowers. When the boat is tilted by the weight of one man’s debt, and the judge refuses to right it, he is not keeping the ship steady. He is letting it sink. And when it sinks, it does not sink the rich man first. It sinks the worker. We must stand together, not in the courtroom, but in the streets and the shops and the homes, and demand that the law be a shield for the many, not a sword for the few. The vault must be opened. The books must be balanced. And the worker must be free.