If Edgar Allan Poe wrote an op-ed today about taxes, oligarchs and worms, it might look something like this:
“O Lenore! — We are tormented by demons and devils far worse than ‘The Raven’!”
Taxes are tolerable stewards of the communal soil, provided they hold all taxpayers — like earthworms — to their fair share of enrichment for the common good. But oligarchs have corrupted taxes to make the rest of us their worms, to enrich only their world with the sweetest of fruits. Sure, we still get something in return. We get just enough to keep plowing and grinding. We get to work longer to further enrich the already super-rich. We get a nightmare instead of a dream.
The Tax Foundation’s Tax Freedom Day symbolizes the hypothetical date that taxpayers of a nation have finally earned enough just to pay all national federal, state and local taxes due for the year. Tax Freedom Day 2026 for America was April 16, 106 days, 3 ½ months into this year. That’s a lot of hard work for average Americans, including Granite Staters.
But the oligarchs who rule Washington are not average Americans. They are billionaires. Far too many billionaires work only at gilding their palaces — and not paying taxes. They would not reap their fortunes without the tax-funded foundational public services that are essential to a functioning society. But the more billionaires accumulate in wealth, the less they seem willing to pay as their “fair share” for those services.
Sad but certain, a 2025 economic study estimates that the Forbes 400 wealthiest Americans — all billionaires — paid only a 23.8% effective tax rate compared to 30% for all U.S. households from 2018 to 2020. Billionaires — including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and President Donald Trump — paid a 20% lower rate than average Americans.
ProPublica reports that the wealthiest 25 actually paid a “true” tax rate — defined as taxes paid relative to actual annual wealth growth — of only 3.4% from 2014 to 2018. According to the report, Bezos paid nothing in federal taxes in 2007 and 2011, Musk paid zip in 2018.
Per ProPublica, the problem is legal tax-avoidance strategies and loopholes. The “buy, borrow, die” strategy, for example, allows billionaires to live — like royalty — by borrowing against their assets to avoid taxable income. Such loans are not taxable, typically low interest that is tax-deductible, and allow the wealthiest to acquire even more assets to build even more wealth. By holding their assets until death and planning around the estate tax provisions, this wealth can be passed mostly intact to the next generation. Once received, it is used to continue the cycle of pulling more into the billionaires’ pile. The wealthiest one percent now holds roughly the equivalent wealth of the bottom 90% of all Americans.
While bragging how super-rich he was, President Trump paid only $750 in federal taxes in 2016 and 2017. Then, his “Big Beautiful Bill” tax cuts robbed even more from the poor to give to the rich. And now he has given himself, his businesses, his sons and “related or affiliated individuals” potentially billions in outright tax immunity. Mr. President, where is tax immunity for those not insanely wealthy?
Working longer to pay billionaires’ taxes on top of our own really hurts — especially when they receive more than their share of the communal fruit despite not being held to their fair share of enrichment. True tax freedom for Americans will only come when we are not chained to paying for billionaires.
Rest is no respite. Sleep finds me writing a story — but always with the same terrifying words … “tax demons” … “oligarch devils” … “worker worms” … and always screaming the same horrifying conclusion: “The American Dream is lost, Lenore!”
Want to be a democracy, not an oligarchy? Then start tapping, gently rapping on your own keyboard.
Tell Congress that “We the People” want oligarchs to get the hell out of our dream and will accept tax-avoidance strategies, loopholes and tax cuts for billionaires nevermore.
Richard Husband lives in Litchfield and has been a licensed New Hampshire attorney for over 35 years, with a personal interest in history.