Posted on 12/14/2012 11:50:33 AM PST by nickcarraway
There are a bunch of bargaining chips currently being passed back and forth between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner as they seek to reach a budget deal before the county slides down the much-feared fiscal cliff.
Perhaps the most notable involved tax rates for the wealthy: Generally speaking, Democrats want to raise them; Republicans -- many of whom signed Grover Norquist's pledge to never raise taxes -- don't.
So even though more than 60 percent of Americans say they would support higher taxes on the rich, we remain at an impasse. Some of those 60 percent also happen to be part of the 1 percent. And, this week, nine San Francisco millionaires joined more than 200 rich people nationwide to demand that Congress raise their taxes by letting the Bush tax cuts expire for those making more than $1 million a year.
The San Francisco cohort includes Mark Buell, president of the Recreation and Park Commission and chair of the America's Cup Organizing Committee; his wife, Susie Buell; international philanthropist Marta Drury, retired Google software engineer Frank Jernigan; Google engineer Fritz Schneider; Chairman of Mortgage Resolution Partners Steven Gluckstern; real estate executive Ken Morris; housing developer John Stewart; and Marsha Rosenbaum, director emerita of the S.F. Drug Policy Alliance office.
Along with 39 other California millionaires, they joined the Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength, a national group of wealthy folks who have signed onto a letter asking the president to "Raise our taxes":
Our country has been good to us. It provided a foundation through which we could succeed. Now, we want to do our part to keep that foundation strong so that others can succeed as we have. The easiest way to raise taxes on the rich -- or on anybody else -- is to allow the Bush-era tax cuts to expire. That's because back in July 2011, Norquist told the Washington Post that "Not continuing a tax cut is not technically a tax increase." Republicans who had handcuffed themselves to the pledge, internally anguishing over whether letting tax cuts expire technically breaks the vow, were ostensibly set free. And yet, more than a year later, it was still news when Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said of letting the cuts expire, "I don't see that as a violation of my pledge."
The tax cuts, passed during President George W. Bush's first term, lowered rates for everybody. For those in the highest tax bracket -- those making more than $250,000 annually -- rates dipped from 39.6 percent to around 36 percent. The Obama Administration has projected that reverting top earners' rates back to the Clinton era's 39.6 percent would bring in $678 billion in revenue through 2020. But in each of the last two years, Obama was unable to reach a deal with Congressional republicans that would raise taxes on the wealthy without raising taxes on everybody else too. So the full cuts were extended. They are once again set to expire at the end of this year.
In a statement yesterday, Californian millionaires who signed the "Raise our taxes" letter argued that "letting the Bush-era tax cuts expire for those earning the most will support vital infrastructure and social programs, grow the economy, and ultimately help the system that helps the wealthy."
The tax increases coming down will impact the middle class the hardest as they always do. The super rich can and will avoid them by.....
Investing in tax exempt municipal bonds andbond funds.
Setting up tax exempt foundations which they control.
Setting up trust funds for their heirs.
Investing in tax deferred retirement accounts.
Investing in real estate tax shelters.
Investing overseas.
Plus many other things all perfectly legal. It will be the middle class which will bear the huge brunt of the expiration of the GWB tax rates not to mention all of the many new taxes contained in Obamacare.
Taxes on the "rich", on businessmen and capitalists, are overwhelmingly borne by the wage earners in the form of a lower demand for labor and a lower productivity of labor, which latter is caused by a lower demand for capital goods relative to consumers' goods and reduced incentives to improve production. The truth is that wage earners always end up bearing the major burden of taxes. They bear the burden whether the taxes are levied on them directly or on the rich.
“retired Google software engineer Frank Jernigan; Google engineer Fritz Schneider”
Yeah you guys made your mega millions off of Google which was sheltering income in Bermuda. Maybe if your employer paid its fair share of taxes in the past you would not be a millionaire today. Take your sanctimony and shove it.
Google’s tax avoidance is called ‘capitalism’, says chairman Eric Schmidt
Google chairman Eric Schmidt has insisted that he is “very proud” of the company’s tax structure, and said that measures to lower its payments were just “capitalism”.
Mr Schmidt’s comments risk inflaming the row over the amount of tax multinationals pay, after it emerged that Google funnelled $9.8 billion of revenues from international subsidiaries into Bermuda last year in order to halve its tax bill.
I suspect this is fabrication.
There, fixed it.
I think the old saying is charity begins at home. These folks should get their State and City in the black before they talk about raising federal taxes.
Now, France has a wealth tax; not just an income tax. A true tax on wealth would have these people joining the Tea Party.
In the meantime, laissez les bon temps rouler!
Few if any of the Leftist a-holes who are yelling for higher tax rates would ever pay more taxes than they have to - they are just calling for higher taxes on others, not themselves.
These retards should just send in all of their wealth first, as an example.
Obama is proposing raising taxes on the rich from 34% to 39%... make them feel like they are real GIVING Americans and kick that tax hike up to 50%. Then they can ALL send "thank you" cards to Obama.
Even Obama said "rich like myself" in his pressers. It's gloating.
Rush said something many moons ago that stuck in my head,
"They don't want anybody else to become richer than they are after they get theirs".
Higher income taxes protect the entrenched wealthy interests that have market share in their respective fields. You name the industry it doesn’t matter. Internet. Textiles. Automotive supplies. Food Services. Household goods. Recorded Entertainment. Retail. All of these sectors already have mega-sized corporations that have massive market share. They were able to grow their companies because they could reinvest profits. And today the small guy has a hard time gaining market share.
By raising income taxes, the smaller companies will have a harder time competing, investing, growing. Do you think Levi Strauss will be hurt by high income taxes? No. But Widget Jean Company will be, because Widget Jeans is a small business trying to grow. The more Widget pays in taxes the harder it will be for it to compete with the big company. Levi already owns a lot of fabricating machines, warehouses, trucks, inventory etc. They can operate at breakeven and do just fine. Widget Jeans can’t operate at breakeven, not if it wants to grow. It needs profits year after year to invest in property, equipment, and other capital costs.
And that is one reason why these hotshots don’t mind advocating for higher taxes. They are already wealthy! You could tax their income at 100% it won’t matter because they are already super rich, they don’t need income. And besides they don’t depend on regular wage income to survive and thrive. They live on the assets they have already accumulated, they live on their savings and dividends and returns on investments which are taxed at a much lower rate, so they don’t care if their competitors get hurt by changing the code that benefited them. They aren’t the ones “giving back”. They are just advocating for others to give, which just so happens to protect themselves from competitors.
Now if they said “raise the capital gains rate to that of regular income” it would be another matter but they aren’t saying that. They are saying that those who work hard now should pay more to help protect their businesses from up and coming competition.
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