I hope you’ve all noticed that we’ve got PolitiFact‘s “Truth-O-Meter” running in the left-hand sidebar. PolitiFact is an excellent service, diligently fact-checking statements made by politicians of all ideological stripes. And there are a lot of really interesting results.
Here’s one that struck me today: you know how, when people talk about what would happen if we repealed the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, it would kill jobs? Supposedly because a whole lot of those wealthy taxpayers are actually small businesses which, as everyone knows, supply most of the jobs in this country?
Turns out, that statement is “barely true.” Here’s the analysis:
One of the arguments Republicans use to support tax cuts for the wealthy is that most are small business owners. Conservative pundit Stephen Hayes made the case on ABC News’ This Week, after U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner affirmed the Obama administration’s commitment to raising taxes on high earners.
“The people that we’re talking about, these so-called wealthy, most of them are small-business owners,” Hayes said. “So if you’re talking about cutting taxes for people who can put people back to work, that’s who you’re talking about.”
It’s certainly more politically palatable to urge lower taxes for mom-and-pop business owners than for Wall Street fat cats. But is it true that most of the rich are small business owners? …
The basis for Hayes’ claim comes from details gleaned from Internal Revenue Service data. The U.S. Treasury Department found in 2007 that many of the wealthiest tax filers report some type of non-wage income, such as income from a sole proprietorship, a partnership or an S corporation. (An S corporation is simply a corporation that chooses to pass corporate income, losses, deductions and credit through to their shareholders for federal tax purposes.) The Treasury Department estimated that 75 percent of tax payers in the top bracket reported this type of income.
But here’s the rub.
Does this mean that all those wealthy taxpayers were small business owners? Probably not. This kind of income could be reported from anyone who earned money from a source other than a regular job, such as consulting or public speaking. It could also be reported by those who make most of their income from partnerships, such as law firms and medical practices. And it could include investors who have little involvement in the day-to-day operations of a company.
It’s impossible to know how many of these high earners are what most people think of as small business owners.
OK, so how can we try to find out?
One indication, however, might be if these wealthy taxpayers reported that most of their income was from this business-type income. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center analyzed IRS data in March 2009, looking to see how many wealthy tax filers could say that half of their income or more came from business income. The center found that, among the wealthiest filers — the top 1 percent — only 25 percent earned more than half their income from business-type income. The percentages for non-wage income were even smaller among taxpayers earning less.
In other words, yes, lots of “business income” is reported on wealthy individuals’ tax returns. But in many cases, there isn’t much connection between that business income and jobs for anyone other than the filer.
Bottom line:
do many wealthy tax payers report types of business income that might be from owning a small business? Sure. But it’s impossible to tell how many meet the definition of what most of us think of when we think of small business owners. Other data indicates that among all tax payers who might be small business owners, most would not see taxes go up if the Bush tax cuts for the highest earners are allowed to expire. Hayes said that “these so-called wealthy, most of them are small-business owners.” We rate that statement Barely True.
Good to know.
That seems arbitrary. But more importantly, this ignores the fact that many small business owners may take payments (guaranteed payments or draws) that count as salary, and then take the rest of the profits of the business as a bonus at the end of the year. All that income is from the small business, but under this methodology used here that individual would not be comsidered a small business owner. And, anecdotally at least, I would guess that the type of situation I’ve offered is very common.
is the idea that “those who make most of their income from partnerships, such as law firms and medical practices” shouldn’t be considered small business owners. While some law practices or medical practices are clearly not small businesses, many others are. 4 lawyer firms, 3 doctor practices, etc employ secretaries, paralegals, office managers, medical assistants, etc. But this analysis doesn’t seem to want to acknowledge that a person can be both a lawyer/doctor and a small business owner.
Demand creates jobs.
Demand creates jobs.
Without simultaneously killing at least as much demand?
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p>Economics may be dismal, but it’s not terribly hard to master if you can escape your politics for a moment.
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p>I’m tired of hearing the repubs promote this talking point. They’ve had the tax cut for years. Where are the jobs? They are simply hoarding the money or playing it in the stock market. It’s most likely that they have no reason or desire to create a job, and never will.
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p>I hope the Dems get out there and refute that talking point. So far I haven’t heard too much push back. Where the heck are they?
Do small business owners say things like, “Boy, I’d sure like to hire 5 more people, but these doggone taxes are killing me.” I’m curious- I don’t know, but I imagine other factors are far more important, such as the number of customers, the quality of the product, and the efficiency of the operation (as liveandletlive says above).
I find it extremely hard to believe that the wealthiest Americans are so-called “small business owners”, if that is what is being suggested here.
Person A owns a successful landscaping company / veterinary clinic / bakery / graphic design company. Person A’s business employs 8 full time employees. Person A makes a very nice income from their business, brings home $400k a year for the family. Person A lives in a nice house on a cul-de-sac, has kids in a good private school, goes on nice family vacations to St Maarten / Tuscany / Aspen every year, and drives a nice car. Now Person A’s taxes are going up by $10,000 a year. That’s not a ton of money to Person A, but they have to make a choice between hiring a few extra landscapers for the summer / immediately replacing that vet tech who just left instead of asking the other 2 to pick up the slack for a few months / continuing to pay the pastry chefs overtime when they get big last minute orders / buying the newest version of the graphic design software that the company uses OR give up the nice vacation / pull the kids out of the fancy private school and send them to the town public middle school. And Person A might just decide to maintain their current lifestyle by squeezing that extra $10,000 out of the business rather than their own pocket.
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p>Now imagine several thousand Person A’s. It’s those types of decisions at the margins that could be affected by President Obama’s proposed non-extension of the Bush tax cuts for the highest margins.
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p>But of course, if those tax rates are extended then the deficits will just keep increasing into the future. Those decisions at the margins might be somewhat damaging to the economy in the short term, but those decisions at the margins also will not pay for the tax cuts if they are extended, and will ensure projected deficits into the future.
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p>So while those decisions at the margins certainly do exist, they might be worth the temporary hit to the economy to avoid spiraling deficits into the future.
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p>Unless of course you don’t care about deficits, only short term stimulus.
…without the additional overhead of Caribbean vacations, McMansions, fancy cars, and private school tuition.
then why not go full socialist?
… why not go full capitalist?
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p>There is a balance between free markets, regulation and taxation. Every generation reevaluates for themselves where the priorities lie.
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p>I am convinced that this round of reevaluation is so contentious because Rush Limbaugh is upset that he has to pay taxes on his 9 figure contract. He can’t get his mind around the idea that he is not a superhuman who pulled himself up by his own bootstraps, rather than simply a talented radio host who lucky to be in the right place at the right time.
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p>When you multiply his anti-tax “hyperbole” into the the million “skulls of mush” that he brags about, you get the tea party.
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p>Then you have idiots like Grover Norquist who feed the rightwing media with crap about the inheritance tax being morally akin to the Holocaust.
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p>It’s no wonder that we cannot have a reasonable conversation.
But I think you dodged my question.
The answer is that there has to be a balance between markets and regulation (read taxes and government) otherwise you eventually end up with a completely feudalistic winner takes all system.
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p>If you are referring to your implied notion that government spending does not create jobs, then you have some rudimentary deficiencies in your knowledge.
Are you claiming that socialism brings feudalism? If so, how so? If not, why not go for socialism? Do you have any objection or do you just assume it’s a bad word so you don’t want to defend it?
… absolutely pure capitalism will result in winner take all version of feudalism which eventually will lead to revolt and enlightenment, which then leads to….. (read your own history books, kid)…. and after several hundred years you get to where we are today – a reasonably balanced version of capitalism versus regulation.
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p>Pure socialism does not work either. For that matter, I am not sure what pure socialism looks like. Are you talking Sweden or the USSR?
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p>Neither really tickles my fancy, but one was dictatorship while the other remains a vibrant democracy.
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p>Or do you mean China which has an incredible Darwinist free market going on, but a very centrally controlled fiscal policy and a political system that tends to either corrupt or be draconian?
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p>Or do you mean US agriculture policy which spends billions of taxpayer money subsidizing staple crops for a generally Republican voting constituency.
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p>There are many shades of socialism.
But since I agree it doesn’t work I’ll let you slide.
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p>I do wonder however if you could provide any non- imaginary examples of unfettered capitalism leading to feudalism.
I’ve got two reactions, first, viscerally, cry me a river, someone making 400,000 a year can’t go to St. Martens or has to send their kids to public school. They’re being socially irresponsible by hoarding wealth. It may be legal and ordinary, but it’s that kind of behavior, where one puts the short term interest of their own pleasure over the long term interest of society, that makes me think that person is a scoundrel. Of course my opinion of their value system is pretty irrelevant to the actual economic impact, so let’s get to the real issue – that kind of business, the stable, successful small business that’s been around for a while, they don’t create jobs.
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p>It’s new business, regardless of size (although new businesses tends to be small) that create jobs. In fact nearly all net job creation since 1980 has occurred in firms less than five years old. So Person A doesn’t really create jobs, they create wealth for themselves – taxing them at a higher rate merely redistributes that wealth. Now talking about tax breaks for new business, that’s something else – cutting payroll taxes, property taxes or allowing for greater / faster depreciation for firms less than 5 or 10 years old might be a great way to spur job creation, but these new businesses generally don’t have a lot of net income that’s taxed, so ending the Bush tax cuts will likely have much less of an impact on job creation than you envision.
Let’s put aside moral condemnations of McMansions and lavish vacations. It would be nice if every tax hike only changed entirely discretionary spending by wealthy people and never affected the livelihood of their middle class employees. But given the choice in the real world, the business owner is going to try to maintain his or her lifestyle and try to find money to pay the additional income tax by reducing business expenses, if possible. And at almost every company, payroll is a significant business expense and it is often possible to reduce that expense.
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p>And you’re only looking at new job creation. For unemployment to decrease, those new jobs need to be created at those new businesses while at the same time the jobs in existing businesses must be maintained. It would be great if the economy picked up and lots of new jobs were created at new small businesses, but it would dampen the recovery if jobs were lost at existing small businesses.
are going to layoff employees rather than give up their vacation or private school for their kids – sounds like a policy arguement to institute job protections.
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p>How about this, the left will support maintaining the Bush tax cuts if the right supports passage of EFCA. That way the employees of Person A’s business will have a fighting chance in protecting their jobs over their bosses fruity umbrella drinks.
Anyone who goes to the trouble and expense of private schooling their children probably has a good reason to do so. Your arrogance at thinking this is some dispensable luxury to be sacrificed in the name of some arbitrary collectivist / redistributionist vision is staggering.
That business owner is either lazy or stupid. If he’s making $400,000 a year, and could make more money by investing $10,000 of his profit in more landscapers to make more money, then why wouldn’t he do this?
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p>If the $10,000 will not bring him $10,000 more in revenue or other benefits, then why would he invest this to begin with? He should just pocket it in the form of salary.
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p>That is why I don’t take businesses who whine about taxes very seriously — they always assume that if not for the taxes, they would be hiring more people — which, if true, means they are leaving money on the table in the form of unmet demand just because they’re pissed about the taxes they’re paying.
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p>Businesses are not hiring because their taxes are too high. They are not hiring because there is no additional demand for their services because the economy is in the tank.
Most small business owners don’t get to sit down with a group of clairvoyant economists who can perfectly plot their demand curve. But putting that aside.
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p>I’m surprised at the number of comments that seem to look at both taxes and demand in two different vacuums, as if they have nothing to do with each other. The demand curve is plotted at specific amounts. Those amounts represent the price of a good or service. That amount factors in the costs that go in to that good or service, as well as the necessary profit that needs to exist in order for a person to spend valuable time providing that good or service. Increasing taxes is an additional expense, the increased amount moves the demand curve. So, even in a vacuum where small business owners make decisions based on perfect economic information, increasing taxes moves a demand curve.
If you’re so smart, you should start a small business!
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p>Then, when liberals eye your profits as if they were stolen, you can voluntarily give them all up with a smile.
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p>At least you’ll know that the government will probably spend your money wisely.
The total amount of taxes really is not a problem. The fact is that it just gets built into the pricing structure.
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p>The real problem comes with the myriad of different taxes, structures, rates, etc…. Keeping all of that straight is a huge pain in the butt and requires a dedicated and knowledgeable accounting staff. But it does NOT affect hiring decisions.
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p>If the business (demand) is there to justify hiring someone, we hire them. If it is not, we don’t. Pretty simple.
I wonder if the owners would agree.
The store does over $3 million in business a year and is still growing.
Then you are one of the very few small business owners of any degree of success who I have ever met, who does not essentially despise democrats and their ideas ( Esp. Re. Taxation )
I made several objections already elsewhere, agree with my State Reps (Brownsbergers) call on this one and told his staff he should stick to his guns. I also called the Governors office and hope Deval will reject this.
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p>This is a bad idea for a variety of reasons, its an end-run around the Constitution is actually valid, I actually don’t want states choosing to nullify articles of the Constitution in compacts, I thought Generals Grant and Sherman settled that question already.
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p>Secondly is Joel’s objection, this makes a Wallace that much more likely, or a Palin. With a candidate only needing a plurality of the national vote states become completely irrelevant to the process and a candidate could appeal to a very narrow base and still win. The electoral college forces candidates to appeal to a broad cross section of America, chart a middle course, and also appeal to both rural and urban interests.
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p>Thirdly, a respected civil rights lawyer at Columbia argued that this will dilute minority votes (particularly those of majority-minority districts which are technically given an electoral vote a piece) and thus violate the Voting Rights Act and its concurring amendments to the Constitution.
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p>Fourthly, the only true victory for those that favor a direct popular vote is eliminating the electoral college entirely, using an obscure loophole in the elector selection to do away with it via fiat is intellectually dishonest and undemocratic (seeing as a minority of Americans could approve of this by entering the compact, the EVs are disproportionate and it could take as little as 11 states with 45% of the population to make this fiat change to the Constitution over the objections of the rest of the country)
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p>Fifthly, this will not lead to a truly 50 state campaign but rather change the swing states from the 15 or so close states that exist now, to the most populated states and the states with the most undecided voters (the old swing states). The only way to get a 50 state campaign is to allocate electoral votes via congressional district following the ME/NE model.
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p>Sixthly, MA is just as irrelevant under a compact or even a true national popular vote as it is under the electoral college. We are a median sized state with a large proportion of democratic voters, the status quo of our irrelevance in presidential elections will remain, except we will now be deprived of being the lone state in a 50 state landslide like we were in 1972 and we will be unable to gloat about that to the rest of the country.
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p>So points 1-5 demonstrate why this is bad for the country, point 6 demonstrates why this is bad for our state. A better plan would be for us to switch to a Me/Ne model. It makes our state immediately competitive in the wake of the Brown election, it gives republican and independent votes more weight than they get under the status quo, it could be imemdiately and constitutionally enacted unlike the compact where we will have to wait for other states and court challenges, and it would allow us to be at the forefront of a sound reform rather than piggy backing off another idea. Of course our democratic dominated legislature has a political incentive not to do this, but here is hoping principle and reason wins out for a change on Beacon Hill. It at least has with my rep.
obviously meant for a different topic
– small businesses which create many jobs probably have high earning owners
– such owners would be less likely to expand their businesses in the face of a. large tax increases and b. uncertainty about same
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p>Note that in order to grow a business, a significant profit must be made and then reinvested. Not just reinvested, but just to have enough money to float a few months payroll, say. Many small businesses are S corps, where all profit goes directly on the owner’s tax return.
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p>Small business owners take huge risks with their own money, many fail, and the ones that succeed are looked at by democrats like a fat turkey on thanksgiving, while everyone else is supposed to get tax cuts. So, why bother? In the immortal words of ‘Kos, “screw em”.
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p>Especially if you’ve been successful enough to be able to ride out the Obama years and hope for something better.
Small business owners make capital purchases which get classified as income. You can literally end up borrowing money to pay taxes if you business is expanding.
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p>A “Swiss” (a type of lathe not where it’s made) type lathe can cost upwards of 250K. A small manufacturers can have 3 or 4 of these machines or other expensive machines that require expensive employees and make lots of parts that can be competitive worldwide. Raises taxes on these types of businesses they won’t buy the next machine or hire the next employee. Not a smart idea especially give our current anemic recovery.
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so you borrow money to purchase the equipment, but that’s just a little hard in today’s capital markets and you borrow money to pay taxes and of course you are on the hook personally.
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p>Also some of the depreciation schedules are just plain wrong – HVAC 29 years?
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p>The higher tax rate do discourage firms that depend on capital investment from making more investment.
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p>and section 179 also expires this year.
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p>
Young firms create jobs – in fact, (see page 7) companies that are likely classified as an S-Corp, where the owner deals with these taxes as an individual, only created around 37% of the jobs in 2007. It’s larger firms, those more likely classified as C-Corp, LLCs (although plenty of very small firms can be LLCs too) and other forms that created the majority of jobs.
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p>So while firms with fewer than 500 employees create the vast majority of jobs, it’s their age, not their size that is the cause. As the report states,
The ones that succeed, firms that make it past five years and start making real money, they can afford a tax increase – and after 5 years, they’re really not creating that many jobs.
S corps only create 37% of all jobs?? Well we can easily do without a percentage that small.
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p>You can afford a tax increase, I am certain of it.
I was responding to your factually incorrect claim that
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p>In the context of the tax question, no they don’t create the most jobs – medium to large business creates the most jobs. You base your arguments on faulty assumptions, that makes your arguments worthless.
Look at fig 5 from your own source.
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p>37% only holds true if you cap small business at 20 ppl. But the shape of the graph should give you pause.
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p>Now, read this nice table which defines small business size:http://www.sba.gov/idc/groups/public/documents/sba_homepage/serv_sstd_tablepdf.pdf
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p>Note that the majority are over 500 pp, but some as low as 100 and a few at 50. All you have to do is add the 50 person shops though, forget 100 and 500, and you are over half by your own chart. From there sb only gets more dominant.
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p>Now, please go consider whose arguments are worthless, weasel.
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When all else fails, resort to verbal abuse. Imagine this is a physical room and we are all standing in a group chatting about this. You start calling people names because you are angry. People are stunned by what you just said and the conversation comes to a screeching halt. The group disperses and reforms in another area of the room, this time without you.
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p>Good-bye demolisher.
It refers to what dhammer was doing
When you meet them in person, they’re often easily-intimidated Caspar Milquetoasts. It says a lot about someone’s character that they resort to ad hominem attacks in lieu of arguing facts in a constructive and respectful manner. He’s a Red guest on a Blue blog, and like many of his compatriots, can’t seem to discuss issues and policy without resorting to childish and rude behaviour.
Little miss socialist
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p>You want to debate some substance let’s go but I’m not sure ive seen an original idea from you ever, so I’ll assume you are as dangerous as the latest column from Paul krugman or some such idiot.
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p>Oops was that rude? So sorry if I’ve offended you, but frankly I await any reason whatsoever to respect your opinion
No one respects your opinion here, because again, you resort to typical right-wing smears such as ‘socialist’ instead of arguing facts. You wouldn’t dare say any of this to our faces, because you hide behind your keyboard in your mother’s basement like a typical coward.
This is a discussion about small business owners whose share of profits are taxed as regular income – small businesses that are classified as an S-Corp versus a C-Corp. So when I talk about the 37% of jobs created, I’m trying to identify the jobs created by businesses that treat the distribution of income to shareholders as regular income – I chose 20, because much bigger than that and private equity investors and other forms of capital often get involved and the business usually switches to an LLC or a C-Corp, forms where the taxation issue we’re discussing don’t apply.
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p>My assumption could be wrong – I couldn’t find anything that talked about the relative number of employees and corporate form, but in my experience, smaller firms, owner operators, sub shops, retail shops, landscaping businesses and the like, tend to be classified as an S-Corp, while larger (not large, mind you, larger) firms as C-Corps.
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p>Your evidence doesn’t offer anything to further your point, it doesn’t touch on corporate form or the issue of taxation, so I’m not sure what you wanted me to take away from that.
That would get you a long way even without my help
You wouldn’t normally hear my yell raise rates, but lower the corporate rate and raise individual rates. Allow S corps to become C corps. This would allow businesses to make capital investment without tax decision entering into the equation.
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But here, you make an excellent point. I’m not sure what the best approach is, but a tax code that penalizes investment in business doesn’t make sense.
Why does it matter what they are?
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p>Top tax bracket under Eisenhower was 91% – even for “small business owners”. And the country did fine, the Middle Class expanded, and things were OK.
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p>Since the unrelenting march to trickle-down economics began in 1981, the Middle Class has been eviscerated.
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p>Pretty simple stuff here, I think.
As in, the same percentage as everyone pays? As in, top 5% pay something like half of all federal income tax? As in, bottom 50% pay 0????
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p>There are many things that disgust me about the democrats today but I think the worst is “I’ll lower your taxes and raise someone else’s”.
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p>Fair share pffft. You try paying a “fair share” and then listening to democrats crow that it isn’t up to 90+% because those were the good old days. 90% is slavery.
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p>I’m disappointed in you Manny.
No, actually, “a system in which people are the property of others,” frequently featuring forced labor, is slavery. 90% is a high tax rate. I know it’s tough for Republicans to understand, but there is actually a difference.
as you advocate confiscating the wealth of others?
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p>I wonder, are you supporting a tax cut for yourself and a tax hike on others? Darned noble of you, buddy. You must be paying more than your fair share right now, no? Or are you?
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p>And, to clarify – OK – you don’t think you own the person, just the fruits of their labors. Oh yea, they can keep a few percent. But you (“we”) own the rest.
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p>I wish people like you would actually pay some European style taxes for a while, or even just pay the top rates here. Then listen to people complain that you don’t pay enough.
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p>I’m sure you can afford a few extra percent in taxes. Pay your fair share David, before you ask others to.
It brings the whole concept of conservative victimhood into new perspective.
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p>So paying taxes is akin to being whipped for refusing to work? Or is it akin to being forced picking cotton for free? Or is it the same as being sold at auction and separated from your family?
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p>I am so confused.
but, if you think it is OK to take 90+% of someone’s earnings, then you are a pretty bad person who is doing serious injustice to them. Mob-sanctioned grand thievery? Something like that.
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p>Although, the obvious solution for most people would be to just stop working, which is obviously not an option for a slave. But even if you think its fair, why do something that so obviously will cause people to stop working? Do you hate the idea of people gaining wealth so much?
… no one paid that 90%. The government created huge tax shelters to direct investment where they wanted it. I once knew a doctor in the 1970s who owned a couple of oil rigs in Texas to lessen his tax burden. (One of my mentors in High School was a retired broker who had some great stories about people avoiding taxes.)
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p>The high rate also promoted capital gains, by promoting the income from investment over over inflated wages. We still have that argument today because the Cap Gains rate is so much lower than the top income rate.
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p>Also, don’t forget that 90% was only paid on the amount of income OVER the next lowest income level, and so on…..
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p>One of the few good things Reagan did was to simplify the tax structure and eliminate the majority of loopholes. Sadly, it only took two years before all the loopholes came back, but rates never caught up. Hence revenue during Reagan/Bush 41 was much lower than it should have been. The Laffer curve was/is a lie.
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Uhh, sure.
Time
There is only a slight bit of truth in the Laffer Curve, and that is when tax rates are obscene enough to create an underground economy.
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p>When Reagan cut taxes, it did NOT increase revenue when adjusted for inflation. Simple.
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p>But zombie lies are hard to kill.
Could help Obama figure out what to do, being so smart and all. I’m sure he’d love an article from Time, since they put him on the cover like 800 times in the past 2 years or whatever
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p>I love slight bit of truth, sort of fits the thread don’t you think?
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p>It’s kind of true therefore our Marxist fantasies must trump!
… in the Cayman Islands, the Laffer Curve doesn’t really affect you.
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p>Taxes went up on the middle and working class under Reagan but taxes went down on the wealthy and overall revenues to the Gov’t went down.
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p>Taxes under Bush 43 went down and so did revenue.
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p>Taxes under Clinton and Bush 41 went up and so did revenue to the Feds.
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p>This is basic econ 201. It’s not hard stuff.
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p>The difficult part is killing the zombies created by the supply-siders.
Zombie away, GregR but have you even looked at any data to support your claim? Because it doesn’t :
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p>http://www.taxpolicycenter.org…
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p>Look right in the inflation adjusted column.
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p>Note that revenues under Reagan were higher than ever before in all years excep 83 and 84.
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p>Note that the highest revenues ever collected were under Bush43 and after all tax cuts were in place. How could this be?
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p>Then contemplate 2 more things: the impact of a recession on tax revenue, and the fact that tax cuts do not take effect instantaneously.
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p>Finally, contemplate the impact of the dot com boom in the 90s, which I’m sure you do not attribute to higher taxes.
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p>So not only are you wrong, but also, it’s more complicated than you make it out to be.
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p>Zombie lies indeed!
I didn’t realize Time had become a daily magazine with occasional special afternoon editions to boot!:)
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p>None of your damn business. I pay what the tax laws require me to pay, like everyone else.
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p>And I wish “people like you” would personally experience what slavery actually is before tossing around childish comparisons.
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p>I’m sure you can too. 😉
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p>Are you suggesting that I don’t pay my “fair share”? And what, pray tell, might be your basis for suggesting that? Like I said, I pay what the tax laws require me to pay. If the tax laws change, I’ll continue to pay what the laws require.
that you use in determining that others don’t pay their fair share, I’m sure.
Then stop replying to them. Why don’t you address the argument that PolitiFact used a flawed method to identify wealthy small business owners. I can think of many scenarios where an individual could earn a high majority of his income from his ownership and operation of a small business, but not be considered a small business owner under this analysis. In fact, I have personally dealt with many real life people who are small business owners but who would fail this analysis. I can also think of scenarios where a non-small business owner would meet this test. In this case the fact checker is in need of some fact checking.
since they believe in fair economic principles. Some of us believe that it is our patriotic duty to contribute to the greater good of American society, whether it be through volunteer work or paying our fair share into the public till. This country has given me the opportunity to use my talents, as well as luck, to thrive and become successful. What kills me is the ‘I’ve got mine-f*** everyone else’ attitude of the people who have benefitted the most.
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p>People paying their fair share is not wealth redistribution. Those at the top have many loopholes and write-offs that in effect lower their tax rates. The middle class and working poor do not have that luxury.
Because you fail to understand liberty.
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p>I’m certain that many “progressives” make tons of money – see limousine liberals. Many of these either fell into their fortune or made it very suddenly. Huge money, like the kind you imagine small business owners must have when you fantasize about taxing them to death.
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p>Fair share is an arbitrary judgement and a political ploy to take money from anyone who seems to have more than you. A real shame.
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p>I’m pretty sure you can afford more taxes though.
without any kind of experience in life, everything I read is generalizations like “limousine liberals” for those who make lots of money, other terms for those that don’t. What you don’t understand that both parties are made up of regular folk in a wide spectrum of earnings and beliefs. Were you even born when Reagan was president? Tax discussions here were with the understanding of the tax changed over the past decade and it’s impact to the economy. Where we were, what changed, and the impact. The conversation is based on what didn’t work and to change back some of those changes. Not impacting just themselves (that’s a Republican thing).
That I reject your worldview, sure. Awfully arrogant of you to think only a kid could do that, though.
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p>Silly.
I have to agree that your “worldview” is not well informed. Not at all.
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p>Get out into the world and actually work before you pass judgement.
What the hell do you know, greg?
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p>Far as I know working is the first cure for Marxist tendencies. Who knows maybe you work for the government.
My email which includes my full name is right there if you click on my name.
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p>I’ll be happy to show you around and introduce you to some of those liberal small business owners you claim are so rare.
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p>Do you want to meet the mayor of North Adams? Or go to Mass MoCA? How about some farmers? Professors from Williams or MCLA? Hell, I even know Jane Swift, the former Republican Guv. (our kids were in the same class for years.)
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p>The entire region of Northern Berkshire County is like a small town. We all know, or know of, each other. We have liberals and conservatives alike and we have respectful conversations and put aside silliness for local governance and friendship. I wish the rest of the country could get their heads wrapped around that concept. Instead we have the divisive language that you have been resorting to on these threads and that makes “getting along” very difficult.
You want to introduce me to the mayor? Or some professors?
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p>Anyway if civility is so important to you, get a load of this guy:
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And when you started attacking people with ad hominem retorts rather than arguments, your lack or perspective became crystal clear, not to mention that you claim to have never met liberal business owners? C’mon. You obviously have not been out in the world.
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p>Also, my quoting Limbaugh’s own words? How does that imply incivility?
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p>Your comments went from reasonable (except the slavery stuff) to stupid in the period of about 24 hours. When arguments became complex, or answers were given that you did not like, you resorted to name calling, etc…
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p>If you want to be an effective advocate for your cause, keep your cool and keep the discussions going to change minds. If you just want to score points, and report back to your buddies how your “demolished” liberals, you are in the wrong forum.
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p>You know where to find me if you ever want to see some of the things you claim don’t exist.
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p>Later,
Greg
Youve got a great imagination, I confess. I remain troubled that some people here are so incredibly arrogant that any disagreement with their beliefs must be either the brainwash of talk radio, or lack of understanding about the world. I mean, it’s nice to hold your beliefs deeply, but denying the possibility of a principled disagreement I think reflects some kind of blindness. Oh well. And speaking of limbaugh, I’m glad you listen to him, but I do not. Therefore I can’t be sure that he did not call the tea party something particularly uncivil, but I would be surprised if he did. I think you did that, even if you used his insult.
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p>You keep fantasizing about your position in the world relative to mine, and I’ll just point you to the tax receipts link that I responded to one of your earlier zombie lies with.
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p>Never back down!
..with “earn” in quotation marks because many of the fatcats like CEOs of failed corporations hardly earn what they are paid.
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p>Personally given the choice between making seven figures with a good chunk going to taxes and making low five figures with almost all my withholdings refunded I’d prefer the former hands down.
and expenses to match. Then you get whacked with a giant tax hike and all of a sudden you can’t pay your mortgage anymore. Better hope your home value isn’t under water huh?
I’m sure my net take-home pay/disposable income would still be much higher than my gross at a rate at which I can count on a refund.
Well I guess that is what we are talking about isn’t it. Except ” I’d take that” seems to be more of a democrat plank than a low earner fantasy. One wonders if they sprout from the same place.
What do YOU think is an appropriate rate for you to pay in taxes? What sacrafices would YOU make in order to get to the rate you propose?
Than we all feel it together when it goes up or down.
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p>I’d like to see a constitutional amendment banning progressive income tax as fundamentally unequal ( and deductions too) and a flat tax capped at 25%. Ideally I’d like to see it at 10%.
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p>Flat tax would fix many ills and injustices and would tend to stay low because no one could vote purely to tax someone else ( which I find despicable).
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p>Might have to slash the hell out of the federal govt, but I’m good with that! Start again from 0 and decide what we need. No transfer payments either.
First you do realize the salaries of those who raise our taxes are themselves taxable, right? Almost all US Senators, for example, fall within the highest wealth brackets.
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p>Second, taxation is perfectly legitimate as long as it’s done by an elected body. In the end we tax ourselves by means of our government.
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p>Finally and most important just because the numbers look the same doesn’t mean they have the same effect. If we use 25% that means a person making 30K is out a very necessary $7500, while someone making 300K will be out a fair $75000, but with plenty to live on, and someone making $30 million will not be starving if he has to give up $7.5 million.
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p>I’m very much not good with slashing the government, especially since you did not specifically state what YOU personally would sacrafice. Not that there are not things that can be put on the table, but when people whine about taxes I want to know what they personally are willing to give up.
You continue to fall into the trap of assuming that people who make more money than you do not “need” it. Maybe they don’t need it to come live your life, but then again you don’t need what you make either if you simply go adopt the life of a monk someplace. And, in any case, what people need should have nothing to do with it.
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p>Anyway, you said that all senators fall into the highest “wealth brackets” – but assuming you mean tax brackets, that is not true:
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p>http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/…
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p>Isn’t that interesting? They are all clear of the 250k threshold that they want to raise taxes on! Even the speaker of the house! Not trying to make too much out of that but you may want to check such things before making claims like that.
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p>I would put everything on the table for slashing govt. I would retain only those things which we need to protect ourselves from being harmed by others, and a few things which broadly benefit all. As a practical matter, it would be a long phase out of big government, but it’s a choice we are going to have to make soon, anyway. Either that or we can ALL start paying European style taxes. A bit more than your 25%, I’m afraid.
…that their salaries per se don’t clear the 250K threshhold, which is why I was careful to say wealth brackets and not income brackets. Many Senators are multimillionaires in terms of net worth. It’s still completely immoral to not take into account ability to pay when calculating income taxes. Remember, we used to have very high tax rates with an economy humming along and plenty of people still very rich.
Net worth has nothing to do with income taxes, except to the extent that it generates taxable income.
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p>You and I will have to agree to disagree on the morality of considering ability and need. 🙂
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p>I think you have an overly simplistic view of history – rich people were not actually oaring 90%, it was all getting sheltered. Is that what you want? Loopholes and dodges? I don’t.
I think most of us consider the lowest part of 6 figures (<200K) as middle class and are happy to keep those tax cuts in place.
If you can’t pay your mortgage on a mid-six figure salary, you need to refinance or cut down on your expenses.
Not being able to pay your mortgage on a mid-six figure salary is fiscal mismanagement or living beyond one’s means, unless there is a catastrophic illness resulting in medical bills or some other extenuating circumstance.
Could be accused of fiscal mismanagement. The difference here is that the reason some people won’t be able to pay is because the democrats caused the government to take too much of the money they had budgeted for that purpose.
We can’t all live in Beverly Farms.
The median sales price for homes in Massachusetts is in the range of $250,000.00. That number is several months old, before the tax credits expired, and has likely declined up until today.
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p>In order to cover the mortgage on a $250,000 home, a buyer would have to come up with $50,000 cash, and make monthly payments of around $1200, plus real estate taxes of several hundred more, for a total payment in the range of $1500-1700 per month (assuming a safe-and-sound 30-year fixed rate mortgage at 6.5%).
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p>A $100,000 income, net of taxes, probably yields take home pay of around $73,000, or $6080/month. Which would leave around $4000 each month for all other expenses.
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p>Pretty good, right? Right in line with the 35% of take-home pay “rule of thumb.”
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p>Except that the median figure includes real estate from way out west in the state, where prices are low because there are no people or jobs. Prices in the eastern part of the state are higher. People who obtained a mortgage prior to 2010 paid much more than present prices.
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p>So if the $100K guy lives east of Worcester, has student loans, or children, or has owned the house for more than a few months, the mortgage– even a nice fixed rate mortgage– consumes much more than the rule-of-thumb, which can make it hard to carry that mortgage on $100K/year.
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p>That isn’t just because the house is in Beverly Farms.
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p>In this thread I detect the liberal/Democratic tendency to wish that the “rich” would pay more taxes in order to carry their fair share and lighten the load on the “middle class”– and then define “rich” as “not impoverished” and “middle class” as a theoretical concept not found in the real world.
In a house just like yours
Aside from snide remarks and showing your ignorance of the tax code?
But you never pick up on it
Look, Eisenhower was a Republican, and both houses of Congress were controlled by Republicans. And they chose to have a 91% top rate on earned income for one reason, and one reason only:
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p>because it worked really well for everyone.
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p>my understanding is that, all told, the middle class paid far less in taxes than they do today, while the wealthiest Americans paid far more (50%, I believe) than the 18% they now pay due to low capital gains taxes.
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p>For almost 50 years this country worked on the notion that the wealthiest Americans should pay taxes at a much higher rate than does the Middle Class, and at least I think that things went really, really well.
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p>Then, in 1981, we started with the trickle-down paradigm, that putting more money in the hands of the wealthy would create even more prosperity for the Middle Class – since then we’ve raised taxes on the Middle Class and dramatically slashed them for the wealthy. I guess each of us can draw our own conclusion as to when America worked better – 1933-1981, or 1981-present.
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p>Obviously, I vote for the latter.
You think America has worked better in the last 30 years than it did in the 30 before that? I bet you don’t mean that.
Need… more… sleep…
I’m not sure why s/he shouldn’t pay taxes, really. And if we’d rather them hire new workers than pay higher taxes, surely we can devise some kind of tax break for hiring new employees or something.
Depending on who you hire , you can qualify for all sorts of credits. There are credits for hiring those who have been unemployed for 6 months+. There are credits for hiring disabled vets. And plenty more where those came from.