Posted on 07/14/2009 11:49:19 AM PDT by Mount Athos
More than a million small business owners and about two-thirds of the profits earned by U.S. small businesses would be hit by the income tax increase on the "rich" that House Democratic leaders want to enact to pay for the health-care reform plan President Obama wants passed this summer, a taxpayer watchdog says.
Ryan Ellis, director of tax policy for Americans for Tax Reform, told CNSNews.com he calculated that 1.09 million of 21.5 million small business owners would see a one- to three-percent surtax on their profits in order to fund the House of Representatives’ trillion-dollar health care reform bill.
While only about five percent of small business owners would be exposed to the extra charge, Ellis says two in every three dollars of profit made by small businesses would be subject to it.
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, announced late Friday that Democrats want to enact this tax increase.
The plan reportedly would include a one percent increase in the income tax rate paid by individuals earning $280,000 or more and by households earning at least $350,000. Steeper rate increases of up to three percent would be imposed on those earning $500,000 and $1 million or more. The committee hopes these income-tax rate increases will raise about $540 billion for the federal government over a decade.
Small business owners would be subject to the income-tax rate increases because many of them report the profits of their small businesses on individual tax returns. As a result, the roughly five percent who make more than $200,000 a year would be hit with the extra tax.
Ellis said the Obama administration’s claims that only a few small businesses will be affected misses the point. “(T)hat’s what the Obama guys will always tell you. It’s a small, single-digit percentage of small businesses that would be affected by this, and that’s absolutely true. It’s probably somewhere between five and 10 percent … of all small businesses.
“But if you actually look at the small business profits being reported, two-thirds of all small business profits are reported in these households.”
Indeed, IRS figures from 2006, the most recent year reported, show that $479 billion of the $707 billion in small business profits was reported by households in the top two percent of earners, those earning more than $200,000.
Republicans went on the offensive after Rangel's Friday announcement. A spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said, “In the middle of a serious recession, with unemployment nearing double digits nationwide, the last thing we need is a tax increase on small businesses, which will cost the American economy even more jobs.”
Blue Dog Democrats in the House also voiced some concern. Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) told CQ Today, “I have a concern with going outside the health care system” when discussing funding options.
“I feel like the House has moved this issue so far to the left we've taken ourselves out of the discussion entirely.”
But Ways and Means Committee member Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.) told The Washington Post that “if (the bill) works right,” the high earners who pay extra taxes will also see lowered health insurance premiums.
Ellis, however, is skeptical. “If you’re a very successful company and you’re making more than a million dollars a year,” he said, then at “a three percentage point surtax, you basically have to assume that their healthcare costs will go down by 3 percent of their profits in order to even themselves out.”
“That’s just not reasonable to expect,” he told CNSNews.com. “(T)here’s not one example of where the government is going to go in and take over something and start spending money on something and then it saves money.”
Rea Hederman, assistant director of the Center for Data Analysis at the conservative Heritage Foundation, also said small business owners will not see their money back unless they force their employees to take the proposed public health care option.
“The only way they would see reductions in health care,” he said, “is if small businesses just say we’re not going to offer health care to our employees all together, and I don’t think that’s a direction that people want to go,” Hederman said.
While the surtax for small businesses may top out at three percent, Hederman said, “in percentage terms, the tax burden is jumping somewhere between four and a half to five percent, and this is going to be combined with the expiration of some of President Bush’s tax cuts.”
The health care surtax would come in addition to the scheduled expiration of the Bush tax cuts at the end of 2010, which will move the federal top rate from 35 percent to 39.6 percent.
In a statement, Thomas Hodge, president of the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, said total top rates, including federal taxes, could push past the 50 percent mark in some states.
“Combining top federal and state rates, and factoring in all deductions, the government would be taking over half of every additional dollar from high-income taxpayers in two-thirds of the states under this latest funding scheme.”
According to Hederman, “Unfortunately, right now, businesses are going to have trouble pricing in (these) cost increases.
“(So) businesses will continue to try to wring out as much efficiency as they can in the labor force, and that means cutting back hours and cutting back jobs,” he said.
A May 2009 survey performed by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, small business owners identified high taxes as the second biggest problem facing them, trailing only poor sales.
The tax increase, if enacted, would take effect in 2011.
Multiply that by every other tax and it is a back breaker. Here is a thought, mind your own business and stay out of other peoples wallets. If you want the government to have more money then YOU give it to them, not me.
Didn’t these Blue Dog Democrats vote for Nancy Pelosi as speaker?
The more people dependent on the government, the more votes they control. Who is going to pay the bill? Rich people. Don't you understand that in their mindset, there will always be rich people they can tax the snot out of? They are call 'progressives" because it's a progressive march toward pure socialism for all but the ruling class.
Folks here have to stop hyperventillating and think. First, this tax is net profit, after costs and deductions, of high income earners. Salaries for employees, if any, are already deducted as a business expense, so this does not take a dime from a possible emplioyee. A lot of these high income small businesses are the same folks we all complain about for operating high flying consulting and lobbying jobs where the income already came from government sources.
Caveat: I am not for tax increases, especially not to feed the maws of the feral gubmint bureaucracy. But folks need to do real reading and real thinking and real analysis.
The Marxists know the economy will self-recover. They’ll wait to hit when it’s swinging back. Also, the mass of voting idiots will give Obama the credit for a recovered economy, just as he’s about to drive it into the tank. By then, the election is over.
On top of the 50%+ already in place, for MANY it will be the straw that breaks the camels back. In these times, ANY additional burden will wipe out a significant portion of small businesses. Now is the time to CUT, not add taxes.
Unintended consequences? I don’t think so. This administration is doing exactly what they want REGARDLESS of the consequences. They have an agenda and the numbers to implement their Obamasharia.
So what, the plan still sucks. Many are not included in some group you don't like, and their business and the people they employ will get screwed, and in the end, we all pay for it.
My predictions:
1. The Democrats will ram the tax increase through.
2. The tax revenues will go into the general fund and get spent on other items.
3. The Democrats will whine about underfunding as an excuse to increase taxes again.
4. Nobody gets health care. Everybody gets stuck with debt and higher taxes. [Well, except for the Congress critters and their families.]
Just...like...Social Security. And Medicare. And every other failed government program.
And much of this is about exactly this. Private healthcare will be forced out of business.
People will LEAVE. Close up shop and leave. Bar room economics.
Are you vaguely saying you support a Democrat tax increase?
Like I have always said what the hell good is me paying for others healthcare if there are no jobs?
Can I see Ted Kennedy’s, Bill Gates’, Warren Buffet’s, and Barack Obama’s recalculated tax payments when this “tax increase on rich people” is assessed?
Much of the Obama administration didn’t even pay “their fair share” of the taxes they’d already BEEN assessed under the law. We aren’t even talking tax shelters, these were outright dodges.
Thanks. I read it like you. A lot of W-2 earners would settle for a 3% cut in income in these times.
“People will LEAVE. Close up shop and leave. Bar room economics.”
Obama: Making work not worth it.
A bailout package for small businesses!! brilliant!
Jeez, converting to Soviet style socialism sure is spendy!
Or, go into the black market.
The owner is a bedrock republican and several of the employees are big Obama supporters. They fail to see what he is doing to their jobs, and yes they will be the first to go and the least able to afford the loss of work.
Good catch. Overlooked that possibility.
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