Posted on 03/19/2009 12:10:57 PM PDT by ConservativeMind
Acting with lightning speed, the Democratic-led House has approved a bill to slap punishing taxes on big employee bonuses from firms bailed out by taxpayers.
The vote was 328-93.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
It's tucked away in those emanations and penumbra right behind the right to kill your unborn child. Look harder...it's right there...see it?
Many thanks!
AAAAAMEN!!!
Whatever...
" We can have reasonable discussion about whether or not the government should have gotten involved in the first place, but contracts (and these were legitimate contracts)"
Produce the contracts! Produce the contracts these worthless morons had with the American taxpayer! Produce them, or your claims are as vacuous and empty.
Members of Congress cannot see it because they have so often crafted special tax breaks aimed at one company or one industry, so they think it must be okay to do the opposite.
I am guessing that the only reason that the special tax breaks for particular corporations do not get struck down is that the taxpayers do not individually have standing to bring lawsuits over the special tax laws favoring one company, and the corporation favored by the tax break is not going to complain.
Yeah, well a large number of Republicans voted to force our kindergarteners to perform community service too. Which is why I’m not a Republican anymore. They lost me this week. Finally and officially.
Your tax for 2008 will be 90%. There...how does it sound to you? You won’t even have enough left over to pay your state or local taxes.
This is evil on so many levels,
1. Congress wrote the bonus exemption into the original package.
2. Now they want to take it away with a tax. A tax ex post facto as a punishment to people who worked hard to minimize the total losses.
3. A tax at 90%!
4. And as Sherman pointed out...their coming back next week with further legislation in regards to bonus, commission, even employee of the week taxation. More than the already confiscatory 35% they get.
It was written in the porkulus bill by Mr. Dodd himself.
Show us the proof that the SPECIFIC people who were given these contracts were worthless morons. Prove it or else your claims are vacuous and empty.
85 Republicans voted in favor and 87 voted against. Not much “whipping” going on from the House minority whip.
But that knee jerk mentality is what rabble-rousing community organizers need to succeed.
It's called Bill of attainder(sp) and is unconstitutional....Congresscritters can't 'go after' individuals or small groups of people. Of course with a populist congress, a populist whitehouse, and a populist Justice Branch, all rich people (people who make more than 12,000/yr) should simply hang themselves with piano wire (Barney Frank thinks so after being appraised by AIG CEO Lilly of the effect this strawman was having on his employees). This was simply a class envy strawman that the kabuki federal gov't is throwing up as a trial balloon before electing themselves to lifetime positions. looks like it's succeeding.
BUMP!
Please read my tag. Damn glad.
Are you unhinged? Do you not understand the most fundamental principles of business law and practice? Really, this is business 101.
Edward Liddy, in his sworn testimony to Congress yesterday, described in great detail the terms and conditions of these employment contract. If you like, feel free to Google his testimony. It might also help you to read the entire thread. A little self-eduction could do you wonders.
When a business in purchased, that business assets and liabilities are assumed by the purchaser. The employment contracts for these executives/employees are liabilities. When the US Taxpayer, vis-a-vis the US Congress, to an 80% equity position in AIG, it also took an 80% risk in the liabilities attached to AIG - AKA these employment contracts.
This is not complicated. What the US Congress is doing is clearly unconstitutional and a tremendous danger to our way of life.
BUMP!
Please read my tag. Damn glad.
Dead on. See you at the revolution.
The central question in this case, like that in Kurth Ranch, is whether the tax in question is, despite its label, a criminal penalty.4 A "tax" can encompass any "pecuniary burden laid upon individuals or property for the purpose of supporting the government." New Jersey v. Anderson, 203 U.S. 483, 492 (1906). The North Carolina Drug Tax, as a pecuniary burden laid upon drug dealers, is in that sense a tax. But the question here is whether the tax is so punitive that the constitutional protections afforded to criminal defendants should attach to its enforcement. "`[T]here comes a time in the extension of the penalizing features of the so-called tax when it loses its character as such and becomes a mere penalty with the characteristics of regulation and punishment.'" Kurth Ranch, 511 U.S. at 779 (quoting A. Magnano Co. v. Hamilton, 292 U.S. 40, 46 (1934)). A penalty "may be termed a duty or tax and yet be a penalty. Its name does not determine its nature."5 Fontenot v. Accardo, 278 F. 871, 874 (5th Cir.1922). As we explain below, North Carolina's Drug Tax, like Montana's Dangerous Drug Tax, has enough punitive features that its nature is that of a criminal penalty, not a civil tax.
Lynn v. West 134 F.3rd 583 (4th Cir., 1998)
If it's designed as a penalty and not for raising revenue, it's a penalty, no matter what the government calls it. If it's a penalty, then those being penalized are entitled to due process.
RIGHT ON THE MONEY - and it is terrifying.
Constitution?? What constitution?
What bill are you reading.
Yeas Nays Not Voting
Democratic 243 1 9
Republican 12 159 7
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