This has been bugging me, so feel free to educate me.
I’m all for taxing the rich, so long as they’re actually rich. $200K/year doesn’t strike me as rich though. In some cities, I wouldn’t be that surprised to find a waiter or bartender making $200K and still have three roommates and no car. Well, maybe not, but life ain’t cheap these days.
So anyway, when we’re talking about taxing the rich, why aren’t I hearing anything about corporations? I just read Obama would like to do away with some oil subsidies, which is a nice start but won’t happen if he isn’t reelected. I keep hearing about corporations barely paying taxes at all, and posting billions in profits.
Why aren’t we raising their taxes? Seems like that’s where most of the wealth is. Sure, there’s a small number of uber-wealthy rich individuals, but if we want 100’s of billions, and even trillions, individuals don’t have that kind of income. Corporations do.
I understand the ‘personhood’ of corporations from the standpoint of limited-liability issues, but I don’t understand the tax breaks.
But I suppose they might all move to the Caymans if we didn’t give them SOME breaks, but I don’t understand the - paid $0 tax, or was refunded $148 million, etc, that some corporations get.
All I know is that the current status quo is not working. Usually, if something is not working, you do something differently, not go more in on the thing not working.
Taxes and the tax code in this country are a joke.
If a single millionaire doesn’t like the law, he can complain all he wants but the government isn’t going to listen. If a moderate sized corporation doesn’t like something, they can complain to the state government and get a break or subsidies, etc.
Well, the super rich can afford lobbyists for one thing. The super rich also have the mobility to go to another country more easily than the average person if they feel like that’s in their best interest economically.
For example, consider the recent news stories about how China’s millionaires are trying to leave because they don’t like the economic and social policies there: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44422237/ns/business-world_business/t/top-chinese-wealthys-wish-list-leave-china/
Only 1.9 % of households in this country make over $250K, and less than 3% of people earn more than $200k. Where do you draw the line at being rich? The majority of small businesses in this country don’t make that much. The average net income for a small business is less than $100k. Unfortunately, Obams can’t get away with raising taxes on large corporations because they are the “job creators” according to the Republicans. You need to reform the corporate tax code since technically, our corporate taxes are very high but there are so many loopholes that the small corporations are getting hit the hardest.
You mean the corporations that are making it possible for presidents and politicians to be elected in the first place because when political campaigns cost tens of millions of dollars, private contributions aren’t going to cut it ? Those corporations ?
I don’t have any meaningful arguments about corporate taxes, but I dispute that $200k isn’t rich. It’s not “wealthy” and there’s plenty folks “richer,” $200k ain’t nothing to sniff at.
It’s the 97th percentile, meaning only 3% of the population get to have that kind of income. That feels rich-ish.
I can’t imagine legitimately struggling at that income level unless you’ve seriously overextended yourself, economically. Or have decided to live in San Francisco or Manhatten.
It’s called finance and accounting. You hire some smart guys, tell them to work your numbers as to optimize your tax payments vis-a-vis the tax code, and sometimes these numbers result.
If you understand refunds for individuals, what’s so different to understand about refunds for corporations? Sometimes you pay the IRS too much money, and therefore get the excess back.
Well, yeah. Why pay taxes twice, especially if you are the sole owner of a business with $800k in profits? You either spend that money, “bonus it out” to yourself, or pay for an accountant and tax attorney to minimize the tax bite.
What VunderBob said. Corporate taxes come from you and me just like income taxes do. Raise corporate taxes and you raise the price of whatever it is people buy from those corporations. Plus it’s unfair in the sense that it’s the customers of those corporations who bear those increased taxes, yet the proceeds go to fund government for everyone.
With regard to tax breaks given to corporations by city, state and federal governments, it should be noted that those aren’t given just for the hell of it. Usually they are granted in order to bring job producing businesses into the area or to keep them there, and because the presence of those companies is deemed to be a greater benefit to the economy in question (city, state, federal) than would the income from the taxes they are being given a break on.
When you have more money than 97 out of 100 people you walk past (on a theoretical sidewalk containing an even socioeconomic distribution of people), you’re rich. I don’t care what it feels like to you where you are. You’re rich.
A better argument (but still not a good one) is that people who make $200k might not feel rich when the people who live around them are making $300k or more. That doesn’t make them poor, though.
When I was growing up, I had a friend whose parents owned a house on “pill hill” (a rich neighborhood so-named for the many doctors and pharmacists who lived there). His house was the smallest one on pill hill. His dad was a blue-collar foreman, and his mom worked hard as a lead nurse (I still remember them both as really nice, humble people). They were the poorest schmoes on pill hill, but guess what? He was still better off than almost every kid in our grade. And compared to the kids in the trailer park? Who mostly had single working parents grossing 12k a year with 3+ kids, if they were lucky? psh.
The point is, even the poor little $200k earners can afford to part with more, so they should. The family I just described was living *well *above their means.
I’m definitely not talking about small business. It often seems though when we talk about corporations the conversation heads towards business, then small business, then struggling God-fearing red-blooded American heterosexual Ma & Pa stores. No, if you are a corporation and your income is millions, or billions and you aren’t paying taxes like individuals, why? I’m pretty sure if I told the IRS 90% of my income was really not so I’m only paying on 10% of my income I’d be getting a knock on the door, and some explaining to do.
Can you provide a dictionary definition of rich that defines it as relative to other people’s income?
I don’t think you can.
What you and the Democrats in government are doing is trying to redefine the term to suit your purposes, which is to ding as many people possible under the guise of sticking it to the rich. “Rich” doesn’t mean you make more money than most, it means that you have assets that amount to great wealth. I can guarantee you that there are plenty of $250k earners who are living a paycheck to paycheck existence and would go under in a matter of months if that income was lost.
$250k a year is affluent, and even if we’re to start suddenly defining rich in terms of income rather than assets, it’s still not “rich”.
I’m still struggling to figure out exactly where $200K/year “doesn’t go far.” I used to work in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA, one of the ten wealthiest ZIP codes in America. Median household income there was $111,421 in 2007. Even in one of the ten wealthiest ZIP codes in the US $200K would be more than about 2/3rds of the households in the town!
The super rich also have the mobility to go to another country more easily than the average person if they feel like that’s in their best interest economically.