Supporters of Tax Increase on Rich

[tomato can]

Was watching Forbes on Fox the other morning. Rick Ungar pointed out that The Tax Foundation had a tax calculator on its website and he calculated that the tax increase on the so called jobs creators making 250,000 to 300,000 a year would be an astounding 199 more per year! Know Rick Ungar does tend to take the liberal approach on a lot of things. Not one conservative on that panel challenged him on this NOT ONE! Mr Steve "we need to cut taxes more" Forbes sat there speechless! One of the panels conservatives heard what Rick Ungar was saying and said the 250,000 crowd were selling junk on ebay.....WTF! I keep hearing from an overwhelming majority of conservatives that the 250,000 makers are the small business owners, the real job creators, ect!

 

 

Let the Bush Tax cuts expire and go back to the Clinton era levels. Taxes are at a 30 year low and so are jobs!

[MattM]

So, love of country is now to be defined by how blindly nationalistic one is, and that nationalism is to be narrowly defined as "paying the highest amount of taxes possible, despite what actual tax law says you have to pay"???

 

Jesus that's a dangerously ignorant position to take.

 

No, it's defined as paying the taxes you owe. What will naturally occur from all of this, however, when we see the very low rate a very rich man pays is a discussion on the fairness of that. It may open the eyes of some folks who don't currently understand how the system is gained to benefit the very rich. As the article I originally posted shows we have a progressive tax system--until you get to the very top. Folks need to ask themselves why is that? Personally, I think it's because the very rich have captured the legislative process/govt over the last 30 years or so and have reaped those rewards in the form of lower taxes. Read Hacker and Pierson's "Winner-Take-All Politics" for more details--they lay it all out in a pretty good and accessible way for those who have an interest.....

[TakeYouToTasker]

I'll start slow. Why do you believe that different types of "income" are taxed differently? Do you understand the principals behind incentivization? Do you know how capital formation and investment work? Do you believe that the economy benefits from more investment or less investment?

[MattM]

I'll start slow. Why do you believe that different types of "income" are taxed differently? Do you understand the principals behind incentivization? Do you know how capital formation and investment work? Do you believe that the economy benefits from more investment or less investment?

 

 

Of course, that's why I posted the long-term capital gains historical rate chart way up above, which shows that the capital gains rate was higher during the last period of high economic growth. Can we cut the condescending tone here for folks who may not share your views, please? I've got degrees from two Ivy League schools with honors and have worked in finance/investment for 20 years, ok, so no need to "go slow". In fact, I think it's kind of funny that I tend to cite/link to things like actual historical numbers or academic studies, but as usual only tend to get back regurgitated Fox News talking points....

[DC Tom]

Was watching Forbes on Fox the other morning. Rick Ungar pointed out that The Tax Foundation had a tax calculator on its website and he calculated that the tax increase on the so called jobs creators making 250,000 to 300,000 a year would be an astounding 199 more per year! Know Rick Ungar does tend to take the liberal approach on a lot of things. Not one conservative on that panel challenged him on this NOT ONE! Mr Steve "we need to cut taxes more" Forbes sat there speechless! One of the panels conservatives heard what Rick Ungar was saying and said the 250,000 crowd were selling junk on ebay.....WTF! I keep hearing from an overwhelming majority of conservatives that the 250,000 makers are the small business owners, the real job creators, ect!

 

 

Let the Bush Tax cuts expire and go back to the Clinton era levels. Taxes are at a 30 year low and so are jobs!

 

Now how can jobs be at a 30 year low when the Obama administration has created 4 million jobs?

[Doc]

Now how can jobs be at a 30 year low when the Obama administration has created 4 million jobs?

Because of the Bush tax cuts, silly!

[WorldTraveller]

Income taxes in America are more progressive than in other rich countries--according to an authoritiative official study which, to my knowledge, has not been contradicted. The OECD's report "Growing Unequal", on poverty and inequality in industrial countries, includes a table that provides two measures of income tax progressivity in 2005. This is evidently the source of de Rugy's numbers. Here they are in an excel file. According to one measure, America's income taxes were the most progressive of the 24 countries in the sample, except for Ireland. According to the other, they were the most progressive full stop. (A more recent OECD report, "Divided We Stand", uses different data, a smaller sample of countries and a different measure of progressivity: the results are similar.)

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/02/us-taxes-really-are-unusually-progressive/252917/

 

http://www.oecd.org/document/4/0,3343,en_2649_33933_41460917_1_1_1_1,00.html

 

 

The presidential election has given us two myths about the rich. First, that their incomes, and income inequality, are at all-time highs. Second, that the wealthy pay less in taxes than ever, and lower taxes than the rest of us.

 

A recent report from the Congressional Budget Office, however, suggests that both may be false.

 

Let’s consider income first. Between 2007 and 2009, after-tax earnings by Americans in the top one percent for income fell 37 percent. On a pre-tax basis they fell 36 percent in the same period.

 

 

That may sound like a minor haircut for One Percenters compared to people who lost their jobs. But when you take into account federal transfers, assistance and taxes paid, the incomes of the bottom 20 percent grew by 3 percent, while it fell a modest 2 percent for the middle 20 percent.

 

In other words, the incomes of the top one percent fell 18 times more than the incomes for the middle class at the start of the recession.

 

Change in after-income tax (2007-2009)

 

The result of this big drop at the top was that their share of the country's total income also fell. In 2007, the top one percent earned 16.7 percent of all after-tax income. In 2009, that portion fell to 11.5 percent.

 

Inequality, in other words, fell during those years. We are now in an age of High-Beta Wealth, where the incomes of the One Percent have become far more manic and prone to wild drops than the rest of the country.

 

And taxes paid? Despite the oft-repeated fact that tax rates for the wealthy are at an all-time low (which is true), it’s also true that the actual amount paid in taxes by the wealthy is higher than before the recession.

 

 

The One Percent paid an average effective tax rate of 28.9 percent on their income — far more than any other group, and more than twice the average effective rate of the middle class, who paid 11 percent on average.

 

So the rich lost more income and paid more of their money in taxes than the rest of the population.

 

This is not an argument against taxing the wealthy. And the incomes and tax rates of the wealthy may have jumped back since 2009, with the rebound in financial markets.

 

But when politicians and pundits talk about the rich just getting richer and paying less taxes, they need to pay closer attention to the actual numbers.

 

http://www.cnbc.com/id/48257611

 

 

Size Matters - Why "Just" Taxing 3% of Small Businesses is Misleading

July 12, 2012

By Ed Gerrish

 

 

President Obama has recently called for letting the Bush tax cuts expire on families more than $250,000 a year (and individuals making over $200,000). This tax increase will affect many businesses that file under the personal income tax code rather than as C corporations – what are known as “pass-through” businesses because the profits pass through to the owners. This is small potatoes, he claims, because the tax hike will only impact 3% of these individually owned businesses, which includes businesses that file as S-corporations and partnerships.

 

How many businesses that will face higher taxes is not the economically meaningful statistic here. What is meaningful is (1) how many people earning over $200,000 have business income and (2) how much business income will be taxed at a higher rate.

 

While S-Corporations and partnerships earning over $200,000 [1] a year may represent a small percent of all personal income tax returns – just 1.2% in 2010 according to the IRS, they represent nearly 5% of adjusted gross income (AGI) in the U.S. More importantly, S-Corporations and partnerships earning over $200,000 a year represented more than 97% of all income earned by these entities in 2010 due to net business losses at lower income levels.

 

This not only means that most of the positive net income from S-corporations and partnerships will face higher tax rates, it ultimately means that the most successful S-corporations and partnerships in the U.S. will see a tax hike. This is important both because there are four times as many S-corporations and partnerships than traditional C-corporations (as of 2008), and S-corporations and partnerships earned 26% more taxable net income in the US than C-corporations – 1.4 trillion to 1.1 trillion. [2]

 

The latest IRS state data on S-corporations and partnership income and returns also demonstrates that some states will be hit harder by these new taxes than others. D.C., Connecticut, and New York, for instance, all receive more than 6.4% of their total state’s adjusted gross income from in S corporations and partnerships; allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire would disproportionally draw more tax dollars from these states than others (even accounting for population).

 

http://taxfoundation.org/blog/

 

 

 

In short, that 3% number reflects the total number of small businesses, not the total % of revenues. If you include the total number of revenues from that 3%, you are talking about well over half the revenues generated from small businesses.

 

Of course, I don't expect you guys to loony leftists to understand this because you are spoon fed distorted numbers from MSNBC, The Obama administration and leftist media organizations.

 

The facts are that this 3% number is misleading at best and doesn't truly reflect the scope of of the net of this tax policy on small businesses.

 

Also, that we do indeed have the most progressive tax code in the world according to the OECD, and that the rich are even paying more in taxes now than then they were before the economic downturn.

 

Those are facts.

 

Then he'll suffer the consequences at the polls--his call. If he doesn't release them people will suspect the worst (and probably be right.). Despite your true believer's view here, this is not a winner for him.

 

PS Still waiting for my education on tax principles from your learned hands that you promised above.

 

There it is, facts are facts, and you lose.

 

Oh, and while you loony leftists have been obsessing over his tax returns, and the vast outspending from the Obama administration on this issues and the media giving mitt horrible coverage over the past two weeks, the polls have tightened. So much for your school of thought. lol

Edited July 23, 2012 by WorldTraveller

[IDBillzFan]

Let the Bush Tax cuts expire and go back to the Clinton era levels. Taxes are at a 30 year low and so are jobs!

So are we supposed to connect the dots that if we let Bush/Obama Tax Cuts expire for those earning over $250K, we will watch the employment numbers drop? Do we apply the current administration's measuring stick that for every trillion laundered to campaign bundlers, unemployment will not go past 8%? Or are we using new math now? And if we collect all those taxes from "the rich," are we using it to pay down the debt or spend on more laundering schemes like grape genetics and another candy machine at John Murtha airport?

 

And what was the reason again for letting them expire? If it's for fairness, wouldn't it be truly fair if we let EVERYONE's tax cut expire?

[WorldTraveller]

How is it remotely possible that you think his tax returns have anything to do with his ability to be President? Am I to presume that you think that, in order to be President, you should pay MORE in taxes than you're legally required to? Because that is certainly what it seems like you're saying. Is that your argument about the "while no one is looking"?

 

Let's ask it a second way, too -- What does filling out a tax form have to do with running the country?

 

And from the political perspective: No one who will use tax returns as their defining reason to vote for or against someone is going to vote for Romney anyway. The reason for this is simple: If you *care* about him releasing his tax returns, what you're really asking for is for embarrassment for the Republican. There's obviously nothing illegal there, just more fodder for the "The rich don't pay their fair share!" crowd.

Because that's what leftist wingnuts care about, Mitt's tax returns, and how rich he is and their perceptions of how little he pays in taxes.

 

For them it is the big issue. I don't blame them for trying to make this THE subject, of course they want people to focus on how rich Mitt is and how he should give more to government, simply because they know that Obama is leading us to the most anemic "recovery" in a very very long time. They know that growth is lacking, job hiring stagnant, government dependency at all time highs, the real estate market still down in the dumps, consumer confidence plummeting and manufacturing sliding. So all they have is "Mitt, where are your tax returns?"

 

That's what they are banking on, unfortunately for them, after outspending Mitt by 2 to 1 with ads attacking Mitt on a personal level and an obsessive media shilling for the president regarding these issues, the polls haven't moved hardly at all, if anything, more in Mitts favor.

 

Ask Mitt's father, who released 12 years' worth when he ran and made a big point of doing so. This has to be killing his son, who apparently idolized his dad, like many sons do.

 

C

No, its not killing him, it's killing you lefty wingnuts. lol

[Adam]

So are we supposed to connect the dots that if we let Bush/Obama Tax Cuts expire for those earning over $250K, we will watch the employment numbers drop? Do we apply the current administration's measuring stick that for every trillion laundered to campaign bundlers, unemployment will not go past 8%? Or are we using new math now? And if we collect all those taxes from "the rich," are we using it to pay down the debt or spend on more laundering schemes like grape genetics and another candy machine at John Murtha airport?

 

And what was the reason again for letting them expire? If it's for fairness, wouldn't it be truly fair if we let EVERYONE's tax cut expire?

Personally, I think these people who want to let them expire and make more ammendments to the tax code are nuts. The tax code is too big and unmanageable. Throw the whole thing out and start from scratch- that way, each side will be forced to come to the table instead of merely saying that doing something would be nice.

[Doc]

Personally, I think these people who want to let them expire and make more ammendments to the tax code are nuts. The tax code is too big and unmanageable. Throw the whole thing out and start from scratch- that way, each side will be forced to come to the table instead of merely saying that doing something would be nice.

Again, something that could have been done in Barry's first 2 years, but wasn't. I wonder why?

[/dev/null]

Again, something that could have been done in Barry's first 2 years, but wasn't. I wonder why?

Because the Tax Code, for the political class, is working just fine

[DC Tom]

Again, something that could have been done in Barry's first 2 years, but wasn't. I wonder why?

 

Because they were too busy with health care.

 

 

Seriously...Chris Dodd told my wife as much.

[WorldTraveller]

Again, something that could have been done in Barry's first 2 years, but wasn't. I wonder why?

Because it was the holy grail of the liberal cause, Universal HealthCare coverage. Who care's that we have a huge debt problem. Who care's that it didn't primarily address the cost of health care, which by most observers account is THE Number one problem that we have in healthcare and main driver of future debt on both a personal, state and federal level. Who care's that it comes at the cost of added mandates and taxes that affects job growth.

 

It's called extreme zeal.

[Doc]

Because they were too busy with health care.

 

 

Seriously...Chris Dodd told my wife as much.

Which means his lips were moving. Which also means...

[DC Tom]

Which means his lips were moving. Which also means...

 

 

"'Hello,' he lied."

[Adam]

Because it was the holy grail of the liberal cause, Universal HealthCare coverage. Who care's that we have a huge debt problem. Who care's that it didn't primarily address the cost of health care, which by most observers account is THE Number one problem that we have in healthcare and main driver of future debt on both a personal, state and federal level. Who care's that it comes at the cost of added mandates and taxes that affects job growth.

 

It's called extreme zeal.

That's weak. One of the holy grails of both sides is that certain things, like tax reform are talked about but not touched- as that costs votes. We treat the debt like it isn't a problem, because the steps needed to fix that will also cost votes. If our politicians thought those issues wouldn't cost them potential election, they would have been taken care of already.

[WorldTraveller]

That's weak. One of the holy grails of both sides is that certain things, like tax reform are talked about but not touched- as that costs votes. We treat the debt like it isn't a problem, because the steps needed to fix that will also cost votes. If our politicians thought those issues wouldn't cost them potential election, they would have been taken care of already.

Paul Ryan has the balls to not only talk about it, but put up his own bill, at the risk of being demonized as a heartless bastard. That's a true profile in courage. So how do the liberals respond? Demonization tactics and when Paul Ryan asked Geithner what their long-term answer is, he responded with "

"We Don't Have A Definitive Solution To Our Long-Term Problem...We Just Don't Like Yours"

Edited July 23, 2012 by WorldTraveller

[Adam]

Paul Ryan has the balls to not only talk about it, but put up his own bill, at the risk of being demonized as a heartless bastard. That's a true profile in courage.

Didn't he take shots from both sides of the aisle?

[WorldTraveller]

Didn't he take shots from both sides of the aisle?

He took shots from alot of people initially, now he has support from nearly all conservatives. I edited my previous post, read how Geithner responded to Paul Ryan's question regarding their long-term solution.