Increasing taxes
by Linda Beale
Increasing taxes on the rich
crossposted with Ataxingmatter
Sometimes a few letters to the editor can restore one’s faith in the sensibleness of fellow Americans. I particularly like Jerry Trupin’s Nov. 25, 2010 New York Times letter responding to Nicholas Kristof’s article on hedge funds. In A Hedge Fund Republic, New York Times, Nov. 18, 2010, Kristof noted that the US has long surpassed familiar “banana republics” in rampant inequality, with plutocrats in the top 1% controlling 24% of American income in 2007. In that context, it simply doesn’t make economic sense, Kristof says, for Congress to plan to give $700 billion in tax cuts to the wealthiest amongst us for the next ten years and yet not be willing to extend unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless as a result of this recession. The richest 0.1% of taxpayers would get an average tax cut of $370,000–no way, Kristof says, that they will hire enough new groundskeepers and garage maintenance personnel to make that a good way to jumpstart the economy, compared to getting money in the hands of those at the bottom. Tax cuts didn’t work to create jobs in the Bush II regime, and they’re not going to work now. Getting money into the hands of the poor and middle class–especially the unemployed–does.
Trupin’s brief letter says it all–as one of the fortunate whose taxes would increase if the Bush cuts aren’t renewed for the wealthy, he benefited last year by being able to refuse to take out a 401(k) minimum distribution, saving himself $28,000 in taxes but not spending an additional penny. That was a giveaway for the rich, as so many of our policies have been. And it didn’t do a thing to create jobs.
I think the question should be a discussion if taxation can be a meaningful way for society to address it’s needs, balancing the pros and cons of a capitalistic society such as USA.
The taxation system in the us mainly falls into income tax and capital gains tax. At the state/local level sales tax/property tax. Since the focus will be taxation on the “rich” What are the “rich” people are we trying to tax?
When we allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, do we really tax the “rich?”. Since our taxation system falls on two tiers the income tax and the capital gains tax. Shall we see a great increase in tax revenue?
Will we still see such disgusting headline such as “Google” getting taxed at effective tax rate of 2.5 percent?
The republicans will advertise their goal is to reduce taxation, benefiting the small businesses, attracting investments, and trickle down economics. The democratic party will advertise that increased tax will create better infrastucture, better regulation, redistribution of wealth to those in need.
Realistically, will Clinton Era policy allow higher taxes on the RICH?
Mega corporations, wealthy wall street investors, will not be affected by much even under Clinton era tax code. At most they mostly will get taxed at long term cap gain 20-25 percent. Google will still be able to shelter it’s tax liability into the limbo future, still paying single digit taxes!
It very similar to bailing our the too big to fail corporations. The big investors whom took big risks and failed have the tax payees bailed them out.
Then whom are those Rich people that we are trying to tax? Are we ending up punishing the productive rich whom own small businesses and are paying the top income tax rate 30 plus percent versus big corporation whom pays in the single digits?
When people says let’s that the rich because it’s a feel good statement… Whom are we truly taxing anyway? Someone that is productive, supporting the society paying top income tax versus corporations that have lobbyist sponsored tax code that allows special preferential tax treatment?
The baby boomers are retiring, they will be hit with a special cap gains tax 2.5 percent next year if they sell their house for retirement? Will that be considered taxing the rich as well?
Should we try to a message to congress to work together and end the obsession to tax the rich by one party and cutting tax by another party when neither party really tax the rich but uses the productive tax payees as pawns?
This is my first post and wanted to say that I agree with you. We had the Bush tax and still are under the Bush tax cuts and it did not create the jobs or the prosperity that it was supposed to do. I suppose if we lived in a closed world, tax cuts would have an effect, but today we have globalization. And as long as we are sending jobs overseas, we cannot produce jobs here. So the republicans keep going on with tax cuts to “create” jobs, and the federal reserve is printing money to “create” jobs and both are not having an effect, and once again it is because of globalization. And yet most economists and politicians are standing by free trade and thing we will create jobs, but in effect we lost some 4 to 8 million jobs. So, if we want to create jobs, we will have to get away from failed ideologies. And what we could do is invest in our country, in our people, and in the future.
1. Invest in the country: High speed rail, high speed internet, energy independence, a new air traffic control system, infrastructure, etc.
2. Invest in the people: Massive vocational training as we have to deal with globalization.
3. Invest in the future: More federal grants to universities for new technologies to create the future jobs we need.
This would give us more bang for the buck than what tax cuts will do.
Agreed. One of the points that people miss about taxes is that the revenue, when it gets spent, is spent here. Unless, of course, it’s spent killing civilians in Afghanistan….
Don’t know how I missed this, perhaps if the U.S. closed every Military instilation around the known world, cleaned up the corruption of the political system, then maybe the tax rates as they are today, would mean something, like having the $$$$’s to rebuild the nation. As Woody puts it, it would be a start.
clearly, investing in US infrastructure and human capital makes sense as the ONLY way to have a long-term impact on job creation. Woody has it right–infrastructure investments that are forward-looking (such as energy independence, public transportation, the next stage of internet capability extended throughout the country) will provide immediate jobs and will provide support to long-term job creation as businesses using the infrastructure prosper. Investing in human capital –education, vocational training, literacy in inner-city areas–similarly pays off over the long term, as a better educated workforce comes up with innovative ideas and creates spinoff jobs. Investing in basic research–which was a big part of the expansive growth of the post-war decades–is essential. INstead of starving our public universities and requiring them to beg from big corporations (and then tailor their research to cater to corporate interests), we should be funding basic foundational research across the sciences, because that is where the future lies. When our universities are eclipsed by China’s we will have lost the most important comparative advantage that we currently have.