This is for those who support McCain primarily * because he will tax Americans (he says) less than Obama will:
Taking Obama at his word that he will cause the taxes of those earning over $250,000 to go up (while keeping those under 250,000 neutral or lower), will this plan increase your own personal federal taxes next year? If so, by how much do you expect your taxes to go up under Obama in 2009?
If not, do you seriously expect to be earning over $250,000 any time in the next four years (2009-2012)? If so, how much of an increase in your income will this represent?
*please feel free to list your other reasons IN ADDITION TO your objection to the taxation issues. I may not believe them, and they’re irrelevant here, but I’d like to give you a sanctioned opportunity to vent, as long as it doesn’t turn into a hijack.
Together my wife and I don’t make over $250,000 but I can see in the next few years we could. However, we live in the DC area, where childcare is $20,000 for one child, the cheaper nice houses are well over $500,000 even with a 20% loss in the last year or so. This may very well screw us in the next few years. I can see where 250k is a lot of money in some places, but in major cities it’s really not.
I also resent the idea that only rich people own stocks. I own stocks, not a whole lot but some. I’ve owned them for years as my father and other family members gave them to me twenty or more years ago. I earn maybe $1500-2000 a year in dividends, why should I have to pay near a third of that in taxes.
I actually like Obama though some of his tax stuff he things doesn’t hurt the middle class, maybe not in some places, but they sure do me.
I support Obama and earn more than $250K. My taxes will go up under him.
Ultimately I favor eliminating income taxes and taxing only consumption (a national sales tax). To protect low income workers, a tax rebate would be passed back so effectively those earning under about $25K would pay nothing. aka the Fair Tax. Our current system discourages saving and productivity.
I’m not sure what your rebuttal is in reference to–who says “only rich people own stocks”?
Your dividend income is taxes as ordinary income. I don’t know your age but if you’re worried about paying taxes on dividends you should be in value-oriented growth stocks. They don’t pay dividends, and when you sell them, you pay taxes at the capital gains rate instead of ordinary income rate.
Which brings me to my rant, which is talk of eliminating the capital gains rate and taxing gains as ordinary income. The difference between dividends and gains is that the capital gains rate encourages investment, which seems like a good thing to me.
(BTW, I am in the DC area and knew a guy named Ed who I used to call “Ed the Head” but he’s probably retired by now so I guess that’s not you.)
Support Obama, make more than $250k. Taxes are not that darn important in the overall scheme of things. Things like positioning our society to thrive over the next three or four generations IS important - and I don’t think our current path of pissing off the world is doing that. Our family can certainly pay more in taxes and still eat.
I suspect people who would pay less taxes under Obama and want to vote for McCain feel similarly - they feel that our current path, or the deviation from it McCain will take, better positions our society to thrive and that is more important than a few hundred or thousand dollars in their pockets.
As to capital gains - dividends and interest should be taxed at ordinary rates…LTCG rates should be lower to adjust for the time value of money. With computerized tax returns and the amount of bookkeeping done for holding stocks, it actually shouldn’t be that hard to apply an adjusted tax rate based off inflation numbers for each sale depending on how long you’d owned the stock. Stock owned for ten years probably wouldn’t get taxed at all because of inflation, stock owned two would get taxed at a higher rate than stock owned for four.
I don’t mind paying taxes on my dividends, but right now it’s around 15%. I believe that Obama wants it to go up to 33% or so. That cuts into what I can save. When given the option I reinvest the dividends back into the company. So I by 50 shares or so, in a year I’ve got 52, a few years later I’ve got 60, when it’s time for my children to goto college I’ve more then doubled my number of stocks.
I can’t remember how much I paid last year in just dividends, I think I earned between 1500-2500 in dividends and interest from savings. At 15% I pay 3-400 bucks, go up to 33% or so like I’ve heard and I 650-700+, that few hundred bucks every year is going to add up in lost savings.
I just a quick calculation and $400 a year for 18 years at 3% comes out to be $10,000. That’s a big start for college, and that’s only the difference in taxes.
I don’t know much about Obama’s tax plan, I honestly don’t look into it that much. But 250k is not that much in the DC area, not if you want to have a family and a house. I don’t see why some people think the 250 mark makes someone automatically rich.
I earn over $250K and live in an expensive city (Dubai/Prague). I think $250K is a good line for determining “rich”. I am not rich to the point of private jets of course (not even close), but $250K certainly makes one very well off no matter where they live. Try living on $35K for a while and you’ll think $250K is astronomical.
$250K is $685 per day. I’d say that makes anyone well to do.
Some people just never think they are very well off. My brother earns close to $400K (Nevada) and thinks he is just slightly above average. :rolleyes:
I still strongly favor no income tax at all - only tax consumption.
The threshold for single people under Obama’s plan is $200,000, and no, realistically, I don’t expect to earn that during the next four or even eight years. If I work my ass off and pass my last actuarial exam and experience good career success over the coming years it’s possible, but unlikely.
Nevertheless, I oppose soak-the-rich tax schemes, and wouldn’t vote for Obama on that basis alone. Once I concede the principle that I work my ass off to earn money, so that a politician can demonstrate his compassion by taking it away and giving it to somebody he deems more deserving, there’s no end to it. Even if I’m below the threshold today, I’ll be above it tomorrow. Thresholds have a way of getting lowered.
I’m not sure who I’m going to vote for president yet. I think McCain is kinda a crazy, and Obama doesn’t have enough experience. I don’t think either would be bad presidents, though, just that they fall short of my ideal of what it is to be president. Unfortunately, resumes don’t predict success, so we won’t know until someone is actually in the office. I like Dangerosa’s view on LTCG.
This year, I’ll fall well short of $200k, much less $250k. A lot of my bonus money is dependent on my company’s stock price (which is tanking and no one can figure out why), since a good chunk of it is in the form of RSUs. So, I’m concerned about straight up income tax as well as capital gains tax. I do plan on making close to $250k by the next election though, if not through salary, then definitely when I get married. I’m also own co-owner of a small business and I’m concerned that my corporate tax rate will go up. It’s difficult to make a profit now as it is. I’m also a partner in a law firm, and all our customers are small business owners. The firm will suffer if our clients can’t afford legal services. I also own a rental property and I’m incorporated as a business in that regards, too. I’m not sure what my tax liability is in that regard, as I let my accountant handle those tax matters since it is out of state.
Tax and spending is my number one issue, but not because I want to save money, though it definitely affects me. I want to see more efficient use of government resources, less pork, and most importantly more free markets (far and away my number one sub-issue). I believe in societal safety nets. I would actually vote to make them bigger (and/or longer) and more direct (i.e. cash transfers), but absolutely punishing if one tries to game the system. I don’t mind paying taxes – well, yes I do, but market inefficiencies piss me off more. I don’t believe in large administrations/bureaucracies of services because often times the administrator doesn’t have the expertise in the service (merely stamping a form, IME) and free services, especially, are more often open to abuse and corruption (which is why ultimately I think UHC will fail).
Just to recap (which I may be doing over the few days and weeks) so far this thread has been open for about a day and it has drawn several responses from McCainites (I think) who earn over $250,000 but who offer no approximations of what they expect Obama’s tax plan to cost them, nor have we heard from those who don’t now earn over $250,000 but who plan to over the next four years.
I’m not completely discouraged from getting any answers ever, but this is certainly not a good sign for getting to quantify the amounts McCain voters who are primarily motivated by their own tax savings expect to save under McCain, which was my original goal here. If I’ve missed ballpark projections, by Edward the Head or any of the other posters here, please correct me–I’m not interested in having you blab your tax returns across the internets, but I’d like to know if you’re talking about huge amounts of money, petty amounts, or what.
Of course, if it’s your money, it’s never petty in some sense, and I don’t mean to be cavalier with your hard-earned nickels, but you’re being taxed on them right now under George Bush and you don’t seem to mind that very much (do you?) so please let us know what amount of money motivates you to cast your ballot. Obviously if it is on the order of nickels, I myself would wonder that you’re unwilling to vote otherwise for so small a savings, and you’re free to tell me off. OTOH, if you’re really going to get taxed into oblivion by Obama, I’d sure like to hear about it and extend my sympathies–maybe I’m all wet in my approach to progressive taxes and hearing about it from the folks who are getting soaked would turn me around.
Dividend taxes are the ones that piss me off the most. Why?
Take an over-simplified scenario:
You own a $100 share of stock that typically pays 10% dividend. But that stock takes a dive to $70. But you get 10% in dividends, so you have 1.1 shares now, or $77 at year’s end.
You’ve now lost $23 on paper. But the government makes you pay taxes on that 10% “gain”, anyway…
I lost a chunk of money in the market, but I still had to pay a bunch of taxes on my “gains”.
Have you seen this link from CNN? Under the McCain plan, tax payers in your inquired tax bracket pay $7871 less. Under the Obama plan, they pay $12 more. But, as I stated before, that’s just pure income tax, I believe, as the article is not clear. Assuming that is true, the issue isn’t, for me anyways, just pure tax, it’s how it’s applied and where. As inefficient as this sounds, I’d rather tax everyone making money, and refund them at the end of the year (the reasoning may be convoluted, but I think it’s the most realistic). Refunds would be based on income levels and dependents. Taxes on businesses and capital gains should be lower, because that is the money doing the most direct work.
From what I’ve read, there is a real difference in the way the candidates’ tax plans play out. CNN is silent on Obama’s plan for business, but McCain’s is totally clear. My friends down in the tax department down the hall say (sorry, no cites handy) that Obama’s plan just gives money back to the middle class, which is what he said it would do. But, they also argue that the purpose of tax isn’t to redistribute wealth and make things more fair, but rather, to pay for government services. I disagree slightly.