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Take Me Out to the Tax Game

Take Me Out to the Tax Game
Wed, 4/18/2012 - by James Thilman
This article originally appeared on Gothamist

Photo: James Thilman/Gothamist

On April 17, the annual deadline for filing income taxes in America, Tax Day protesters visited the offices of Bain Capital (Mitt Romney's alma mater), General Electric, the Paulson Group, Wells Fargo - and fat cat Donald Trump's tower on Fifth Avenue. The ladies who lunch (literally) were just letting out of a bash hosted by the Donald in celebration of Ann Romney's birthday as protesters dressed as the Tax Dodgers and their fans sang "Take Me Out To The Tax Game." While some of the women seemed bewildered and shielded their faces with Chanel clutches, others squawked at the protesters, "At least we pay taxes!" and "Maybe you should get real jobs!" We'll have to assume that by "real jobs" the ladies attending a luncheon for Ann Romney were referring to the trials of a rich housewife. In any case, protesters were unfazed and continued with their shrewd charade.

"On Tax Day, we wanted to thank all hardworking, taxpaying Americans for helping us win another record-breaking season because we couldn't have done it with out you! Remember? You pay taxes so we don't have to," an announcer portraying the team's owner told the crowd, "We're the Tax Dodgers. We're number 1. And by that we mean we're the 1 percent." Players' uniforms were emblazoned with the names of multi-billion dollar companies. As the announcer explained:

"One again, we pitched a perfect game this tax season, and paid nothing. Some of our biggest players have actually been batting over a a thousand, and got billions in refunds—on taxes we didn't even pay! Now, technically, that's called paying negative taxes, but from where we stand it sure feels pretty positive.

"And Just look at our all-star lineup—our players are so good, they're household names: Bank of America, Verizon, Time Warner, Wells Fargo, Citibank, to name a few. And let's not forget our heavy hitter, GE: $4.2 billion in US profits and a whopping $3.2 billion in tax refunds. You can't buy tax breaks like that! Of course, we can...but that's because we don't pay taxes, we pay lobbyists.

"But above all, we're really like to thank our team mascot, Mitt. It takes some serious baseballs to propose cuts to social security, medicare, and public services when most Americans can't even get on base. Just remember: Corporations are people, but they shouldn't have to pay taxes like people."

And finally, after thanking America for paying taxes so they don't have to, the Tax Dodgers broke out in song with a clever parody of "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" before continuing on to the day's next corporate target.

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