Bush's "The Rich Don't Pay Taxes" Meme

[Liberal]

Oh, stop acting like you’ve never heard of a figure of speech. Do you seriously mean to say that by saying that the rich dodge taxes or the rich don’t pay, Bush was making an assertion that no rich person every pays so much as a cent in tax? If so, why aren’t you pitting Edwards’ ridiculous assertion that there are “two Americas”? I can give you links to Mapquest that will prove there is only one America. You wealth-envy people are neglecting the fact that the rich have already lost substantial income from market forces alone. Your obsession with pillaging what remains borders on animalism.

[Wealthy people] suffered the greatest income loss of any income group. Every income class above $200,000 — the top 2 percent that Kerry and Edwards say must pay more taxes — suffered an income loss between the years 2000 and 2002 (in inflation-adjusted terms). The losses ranged from 10.5 percent for those with incomes between $200,000 and $500,000, to an amazing 63.4 percent for those with incomes above $10 million.

One out of every eight persons with an income above $200,000 in 2000 had an income below that by 2002. The ranks of those with incomes above $10 million fell by more than half, with the aggregate income of this group falling from $300 billion to $110 billion.

This does not mean we should cry for those rich people whose incomes have fallen. No doubt, the vast bulk of these earners are still doing very well compared with most Americans. But there is reason to question why they should be heaped with scorn by the Democratic party and punished with higher taxes when they have just suffered staggering income losses.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/08/02/opinion/main633465.shtml

[Dangerosa]

Its been a number of years since I did corporate income taxes, and laws change, but we had to keep a flight log of all trips taken by the corporate jet, and who was on it and what they did. There had to be a “significant” business purpose at the other end of the flight - drinks with a customer while you went to the Kentucky Derby didn’t count. And personal flights were added to the exec’s total compensation. The auditors were very interested in the significant business purpose, we had to keep great records - they were more than happy to tag exec’s with fines for what was essentially personal use.

It was cheaper - tax wise, paperwork wise, and risk wise (as every trip was going to go under scrutiny and might lead to fines or the uncovering of more monkeybusiness), for them to book their own first class ticket than to take the corporate jet.

I always think back on that time (we did those exec’s personal taxes as well - for which we had to include value in their compensation) when the topic “the rich don’t pay taxes” comes up. Those guys paid taxes…quite a bit. Maybe had their taxes been done by a personal accountant rather than out of their corporate tax department, the accountant would have pulled more out via the grey in the code. But we sure didn’t.

[RTFirefly]

Yet one more time, August 13, Beaverton, OR:

I’ll give you one other thought. Let me just leave you with one other thought about taxing the rich. You know how that works. A lot of the rich are able to get accountants, so they don’t – they’re able to dodge. You’ve seen it before. We’re going to tax the rich, and then they figure out how not to get taxed. So guess who ends up paying? You do. And we’re not going to let him do it to us. We’re not going to let him wreck that economy by running up our taxes.

Plus more Bushwa about when you tax the rich, you cripple small businesses:

They said, how are you going to pay for it. Well, we’re going to tax the rich. Remember, when you tax the rich, you’re taxing S corps and sole proprietorships. When you start running up those tax rates on individuals, the people who start paying are the small business owners. I told you, by far, the vast majority of small businesses in America are sole proprietorships or S corps. And if they are halfway successful, he’s running the taxes up on them. And why would you want to be taxing the job creators of America? It’s bad economic policy to run up the taxes.

It’s been an eon since I was a tax professional, and business taxes weren’t exactly my forte. But as I understand it, the only money that’s taxable is (revenue) - (legitimate business expenses). (Anyone whose knowledge is more detailed and more up-to-date, please jump in.) So what’s taxable is the profit that isn’t reinvested in the business, and how does taxing that hurt the business? It isn’t going back into the business anyway.

[Liberal]

Speaking of planting memes, I’m just curious as to whether you stole your OP from the Daily KOS on August 10, or whether you’re the same as the RT username there, and are just spamming several message boards with this drivel.

[El_Cid_Viscoso]

All right, RT, how 'bout it?

What’s the frequency, Kenneth?

[RTFirefly]

@El Cid Viscoso

All right, RT, how 'bout it?

How about what??