Bush Economic Stimulus Package - Some ammunition for you to use when talking about it

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20030106/D7OCSDAO0.html ^ | 1-6-03 | Drewman626

[netmilsmom]

Saved for future homeschooling economics class!!!
thank you!

[Blood of Tyrants]

Here is another one. When was the last time a poor man gave you a job? If that same man got a $500 a year "tax cut", is he now going to employ you?

[areafiftyone]

All I can say is: "Would you mind repeating that?" ;-)

[Quilla]

Thank you for taking the time. Great read.

Approximately 51% of ALL stock and security dividends are paid to Senior Citizens. This is mostly from retirement accounts and annuities.

I hope Bush will say this over and over to counter the attack that has already started from the left.

[areafiftyone]

In all seriousness, thank you for taking the time to post this - very informative!

[SJackson]

A minor correction, though I havn't seen the actual proposals (are they out?).

There is no history in tax legislation to pass tax free or tax preferred (ie capital gains or return of capital dividends) treatment of earnings through either annuities or retirement plans to the participants. I'd be very surprised if that was proposed. I suspect any preferred treatment of dividends would apply only to dividends received directly by the taxpayer.

[Bahbah]

Excellent information. Especially the statistics on who is paying the taxes and at what income levels. I never hear them say what "rich" is.

[BOBTHENAILER]

Very nicely done.

[dd5339]

Nice post, I'm going to archive this for use in arguements with the union where I work.

Semper Fi

[Drewman626]

Sj - Agreed. However, since the vast majority of dividends, currently that is... is reinvested in those qualified accounts, I can't see how ingoring them and giving non-qual's preferred treatment would be of significant benefit. However, not taxing directly received dividends would also be VERY good seeing as how the second most common option is to directly receive them... especially with the Senior Citizens. I guess we'll see tomorrow.

[Karsus]

What would you say to people that think the payroll taxes should be cut?

[litehaus]

"Hate the rich, ask a poor man for a job"

[Drewman626]

I'd say I agree.

The majority of Payroll Taxes is FICA. Your tax-rate is determined at the end of the year... and shored-up with your tax rebate check.

What you could do is claim more dependants. Go to your HR person and tell them that you want to change your number of Dependants.

Always claim yourself as 1. Claim Head-of-Household.. that's another 1. And there should be a MISC entry too (in most states) where you can enter up to 1. This will reduce your FICA, but it will also reduce your tax rebate check at the end of the year. It's up to you.

[Karsus]

Or we could just get rid of SS and let everyone invest the money in an IRA...

[RandyRep]

Thanks for the analysis - excellent work!

The big question I have is how the elimination of personal income taxes on dividends will be accounted for in IRAs and 401Ks. Will dividends paid up to the present into 401Ks and IRAs be taxed at the previous levels, or at the new levels? If it is at the previous levels, the bookkeeping will be horrendous for the funds. If at the new levels, the funds (and payments from them) will increase greatly in value. This will be a big WIN for investors and for Bush.

[Steven W.]

one mistake I caught - dividends distributed to true retirement accounts are not subject to the second level of taxation; the reason why your 401K is still taxed at the end of the year is because they (all) have stupid money managers responsible for the accounts who must sell stocks when foolish people bail the market and because managers are always trying to fix their funds to look better than they actually performed (window dressing). This is a great proposal, however, and one which will truly split the DemoncRATs on their class warfare rhetoric, leaving only the truly stupid on their side and convincing Wall St. and Main St. that the DemoncRATs will not only sacrifice homeland security for their political interests, as they did last year, but also sacrifice America's economic security and prosperity in a vain attempt to try and prop up their failed party ideals.

[Steven W.]

Two factors - 1st the dividends you receive (if currently taxed) will be subject to less taxes. 2nd the companies that pay dividends will be encouraged to increase the level of their payouts thus increasing the value of your investments. 3rd the increased levels of returns will (should) be re-invested in your accounts to increase the exponential returns that have traditionally been returned by investments in equities (vs people throwing their money away on stupid "pets.com" or "ezgov.com" type absurdities).

[RooRoobird14]

It should also be added that "payroll tax holiday" is a DimWit code word. What they don't want their geezer constituents to figure out is that they're proposing social security payroll witholdings be dropped temporarily, i.e, less $$$ will be going into the SS "trust fund."

And this is from the same @ssholes who LOVE to scare the geezers by claiming optional partially (2%) privatized SS accounts will " "fundamentally destroy the financial soundness" of the SS trust fund!!!

The hypocrisy of these DNC Clymers on social security needs to be pointed out at every opportunity!!!

[SJackson]

The big question I have is how the elimination of personal income taxes on dividends will be accounted for in IRAs and 401Ks.

Income isn't currently taxed when received by tax deferred account. You pay taxes as regular income when you make withdrawls, regardless of how the earnings are generated.